The Aftermath (Considering Ecclesiastes)

This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: the same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead.

Ecclesiastes 9:3

The Aftermath

An officer
lies there softly 
crying distress –

A 
leaning
lieutenant. 
 
The 
crimson lawn
and widely
wounded 
earth
displays his chaotic condition:

Much of the field is 
decked with 
the dying. 

Corpse-white 
faces face
wounded brothers. 

They are all 
smothered with 
red decoration – 

blood
and Autumn’s 
leaves.

The delirious are also mired 
in plasmatic profusions; they are 
truly confounded,

they are drenched 
and 
drilled. 

Witness their buckshot 
bellies, O Lord, 
sense their agony.
 
It had 
to be – 
this suffering. 

Why do the living linger in 
mortality so long – 
longer than the dead?

Life makes 
mankind to 
meet madnesses. 

Does this macabre 
state not exist 
for years? 

We 
searched 
for a reason; 

a reason to start 
a trite, 
trivial argument.
 
Now, in the aftermath 
of battle, 
cries awake. 

There 
are 
pleas: 

“Help! 
Where’s my 
leg?” 

“I can’t feel my 
face? I can’t 
see anything!”

“I 
need water! 
I thirst. I thirst.”

So shriek the dying 
on the bloody field 
of battle –

they 
are 
poetic soldiers. 

Breath-heavy 
are they, and the 
fear-stricken, courageous. 

“Nonsense, 
my man, 
nonsense, nonsense;

what you say is 
nonsense. Do not be 
afraid,” 

comforts 
an 
un-despairing,

sympathizing, and broken brother 
breathing eerie 
mists.

The 
companion’s
guts grace grasses.

Upon 
the 
earth the wounded lie,

Softly they cry 
on unforgiving 
soil.

Sense these 
dead 
and

dying 
mortals.

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Ben Plunkett

Greetings from the booming metropolis that is Pleasant View, Tennessee. I am a man of constant spiritual highs and spiritual lows. I pray that I serve God at my highest even when I am lowest.

Ben was a founding member of Rambling Ever On and a regular contributor and editor until his untimely death in April 2020.

We wrote a tribute to him, but the best tribute you can give him would be to read all the wonderful poems, short stories, book reviews, theological essays, and ridiculous satire pieces he wrote for us. Pass them on to others and maybe allow Ben to inspire you to write something yourself.

Latest posts by Ben Plunkett (see all)

• The Chorus (Considering Ecclesiastes) - November 20, 2024
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