Baker Brownell

From “In Barracks”

SLEEP-SOAKED bodies are pried

Out of the obese night; laziness,

Yearning in porous flesh,

Is squeezed as from a sponge.

Silver tubes lifted upward by young buglers

Spout glistening sound

Upon the murk of early day.

The sounds of first call

Clink and glisten in the early air;

Bright chips of sound tinkle and clash sweetly

Like ice in the dusky water of an urn.

Reveille and the murmur of men—

A murmurous cloud of dusk lifts

From the earthen floor. A murmur

Distant, huge, sweet with Being’s joy,

Rises from the awakening thousands

Of earth-born bodies.

The blare of regimental bands

Hoists finally night’s curtain

With distant shattering.