Another first draft for a more recent poem... Based on the Afghanistan and Iraq war casualty memorial in California, which had been built entirely by residents and families of soldiers killed in the fighting, and not endorsed by any governmental body. So, an unofficial Middle-eastern conflict monument, all made of perishable materials like wooden crosses, wooden stars, and photographs.

I'd be interested in critique on this one too. :) Especially since finding an appropriate title for this one has been especially difficult.

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One day, these crosses with no longer stand.
Their words will fade, their photos bleach
in sun, their count will vanish.
Until new it becomes the memory again,
of a battlefield with no monument, and a war
with no known casualty.

It’s the handprint of light, in the gaps
of fingers each darkness defined.
The layers of information do not vanish
as the ink and the soil and malachite,
old voices with new echoes, through xylem and phloem
do not vanish. Repurposed and rebuilt
and revoiced. There are documents on, in
within, each wiry strand. Each blink prints the world
another stage overtop. Death and life, memory is
the medium. The blue of the iron, stamping the
paper with the heavy realities. A thin sliver of moment.
The material is the meaning—the single atom and the singular element
entangled, and each molecule, entangled, and each property
of material is entangled and we cannot essentialize.
We no longer can be excused for craving polarity,
simpleness. The refrain is implied, and the shared quality
is refrain, but always unique.