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Hellish Season

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It’s summer

And it’s hot

The sky too dense

With particulates

Of fires

And there’s

An irony of floods

And there is war too hot to fight

Yet fought

There

And in

We’ve heard

The war at home

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Too much heat

It could seem

For sin

And yet not (yet) hot enough

To forestall

Our trying

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And should

The hellish rise

In us

Around us

There might be balm

Valued

And adored

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Christ

(of battle

of

the coming of the Lord)

Spirit

And angels

Come with mercy

Like cool liquid

On fevered heads

Once bodies

Have been taken

From the fray

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And then the heat

Might break

A cooling rain

In fact

Begins and lasts

All the next day

Like the fourth day after

Three days

Of terrifying

Awesome

Blooded battle

All battles drawing blood

But this

Specifically at Gettysburg

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Four days at Gettysburg

The fourth day for rain

To wash the field

To mist the ignominy

Either of retreat

Or too much victory

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C L Couch

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(after three days of accidental, built-up, pent-up, exhausting, murderous battle, starting on the first, the battle at Gettysburg was done and on the fourth day there was rain—ironic for the nation, being the Fourth of July, of course our independence day for the USA)

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Photo by Henrique Sá on Unsplash

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