Letter From a Most-Loved American General, 1996

American Poetry Review, The, May/Jun 1998 by Wenderoth, Joe

I have retreated with my whole army

into the countryside,

deep into the countryside.

This is the only sacred thing, retreat,

the only thing we have ever really believed in.

We moved deeper into the countryside

every chance we got.

If the weather allowed, we moved.

We came to a point, however,

where the countryside could get no deeper.

We knew, I think,

that we would come to this point.

We are at this point now.

And now, whenever we move,

we move out of the countryside,

we move against a city, against our enemy.

I have had to give the order not to move,

though this most certainly means we will starve.

This is not to say my orders have brought discord;

no, the men and I are one.

Even here, even starving,

entrenched in a dwindling countryside,

unable to retreat,

we understand one another,

and we remain completely devoted

to the one highest freedom:

the freedom to not have to speak of what we fight for.