Veterans' Cemetery

"Veterans' Cemetery" is the first song of Stefania de Kenessey's song cycle Autumn Elegy, composed in memory of the victims of the World Trade Center attack, September 11, 2001.
The song cycle sets three poems of Dana Gioia.

Date: 2002Composer: Stefania de KenesseyText: Dana GioiaSong Collection: Autumn Elegy

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Text

Veterans’ Cemetery
by Dana Gioia

The ceremonies of the day have ceased,
Abandoned to the ragged crow’s parade.
The flags unravel in the caterpillar’s feast.
The wreaths collapse onto the stones they shade.

How quietly doves gather by the gate
Like souls who have no heaven and no hell.
The patient grass reclaims its lost estate
Where one stone angel stands as sentinel.

The voices whispering in the burning leaves,
Faint and inhuman, what can they desire
When every season feeds upon the past,
And summer’s green ignites the autumn’s fire?

The afternoon’s a single thread of light
Sewn through the tatters of a leafless willow,
As one by one the branches fade from sight,
And time curls up like paper turning yellow.

–from The Gods of Winter

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