What we see first seems a shadow
or a retaining wall in the park,
like half a giant pool or half
an exposed foundation. The names
start a few to the column at
the shallow ends and grow panel
by deeper panel as though month
by month to the point of opposing
planes. From that pit we can't see much
official Washington, just sky
and trees and names and people on
the Mall and the Capitol like
a fancy urn. For this is a wedge
into the earth, a ramp of names
driven into the nation's green,
a black mirror of names many
as the text of a book published
in stone, beginning almost
imperceptibly in the lawn
on one side and growing on black pages
bigger than any reader (as you look
for your own name in each chapter)
and then thin away like a ledger
into the turf again, with no
beginning and no end. As though
the black wall uncovered here a few
yards for sunlight and recognition
runs on and on through the ground in
both directions with our names on
the hidden, lettered panels -- while
these names shine in open noon.