Skip to main content

Beginning with a Line from Ernie Pyle, a poem by Matthew Graham

 Beginning with a Line from Ernie Pyle
                       --- from The Indiana Series

And yet you know. Always in your heart…
You have never really left.
When Ernie Pyle walked the high tide line
Of Omaha Beach the morning after D-Day,
Of all that he stepped over what he remembered most
Were the cartons of soggy cigarettes, stationary,
French phrase books, sewing kits, snap shots,
Playing cards, metal pocket mirrors,
A tennis racket still clamped in its rack,
A broken banjo.
Sea birds circled
What history brings.
What history leaves behind.


Matthew Graham is the current Indiana State Poet Laureate.