The Foreword to the new book “The Wisdom of Our Ancestors: Conservative Humanism and the Western Tradition.”
Vietnam Memorial
October 8, 2014
Cold names on a wall,
indistinguishable at a distance,
three men dazed,
three women mourning—
this is our memorial:
pity for broken things.
The viewers, the voyeurs,
shamble through the grounds,
heads down, eyes averted,
from wall to statue to statue,
a triangulation of lamentation;
nobody speaks.
Some statue is missing:
the Minuteman at the ready,
Lee or Grant breathing defiance,
Alfred fronting the Danes at Ethandune,
Hector at Troy, the company of valor …
Nothing. Mist collects on the wall,
tears glisten on flesh and stone,
my shoes darken in the wet grass;
everything weeps here.
They should have warned me:
this is no place for a veteran.
— Phoebe S. Spinrad
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