Wailing Wall

I stand among the names,
each name a face,
my own pale face 
reflected.
Shadows fall.
My shadow darkens 
names.

 I recall 
the marches and the speeches,
mounting mail,
the body counts, film footage.
Still, I fail
to feel the weight 
of bodies.

 Each name, as one of many,
yes, is a fact,
but I want to I feel the weight 
of what was then.
But I do not sense the bodies:
not here, not now.

 What was is not an option.
Names like these
are given every day
to newborn sons
who have to learn 
their bodies
to be more than names.
But here names have no bodies.

 What do we learn?
These names stare down 
and stop us; 
numbered names,
once worn on chains and lockets,
left like leaves 
shed from rare trees 
of promise.

 The faces worn by bodies,
still unborn,
were thought to have a future
way back then,
before they were a name
incised in stone.

 I make no claims
and can't attach a blessing:
too many names 
cut into stone by war.
What do I know
to praise 
or to condemn?
What is a name
except it stand for something?

 At this Wall
that's buried like the men
whose names it bears, 
it's clear
just what is missing: 
eyes and limbs,
the noise of lips rejoicing,
the gift of touch,
hands that should, instead,
be reaching 
and for a lover’s body;
nothing gained 
and far too much remembered.

 Maybe now, 
to think again of wars nobody wins,
we hold the bodies precious
of these men,
now lost, of some importance, 
but not before.

 We learn to love so slowly.
Still unlearned
are all wars' messy stories.
Cold hard stone
in which these names are carved
holds up the question: What 
was the killing for?

 Names cut in stone
as standing prayers
against 
what these men did
and what they were,
if not 
by their intention.

 Accomplished in destruction,
so in peace,
we do not weigh
the cost 
in pounds and ounces:
this wall a witness
to just how little life is valued.
if not our own. 
War finds life cheap

 So, ask what was it for?
Why did men die?
For whom? For what?
To what was war the answer?
And why these deaths?

 What does it say 
that we track the daily visits,
count them success?