Revolution

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Revolution

1.
She said that her grandmother had been widowed
by the revolution and married again and was
widowed again, and married a third time and
was widowed yet again, and wed no more although
there were opportunities enough for her to do
so as she was a great beauty and not yet twenty
years of age when the last husband fell with one
hand over his breast in a gesture of fidelity
sworn, clutching the rifleball to him like a
gift, the sword and pistol he carried falling
away behind him useless in the palmettos, in
the sand, the riderless horse stepping about in
the melee of shot and shell and the cries of
men, trotting off with the stirrups flapping,
coming back, wandering in silhouette with others
of its kind among the bodies of the dead on that
senseless plain while the dark drew from their
arbors in the thorns returned and about and
clittered and the moon rose blind and white
in the east and the little jackal wolves came
trotting that would eat the dead from out of
their clothes.

2.
She said that her grandmother
had been widowed by the revolution
and married again
and was widowed again
and married a third time
and wed no more although
there were opportunities enough
for her to do so as she was
a great beauty and not yet twenty
years of age when the last husband
fell with one hand over his breast
in a gesture of fidelity sworn,
clutching the rifleball to him
like a gift, the sword and pistol he
carried falling away behind him
useless in the palmettos, in the sand,
the riderless horse stepping about
in the melee of shot and shell
and the cries of men, trotting off
with the stirrups flapping, coming back,
wandering in silhouette with others
of its kind among the bodies of the dead
on that senseless plain while the dark
drew from their arbors in the thorns
returned and clittered and the moon
rose blind and white in the east,
and the little jackal wolves came
trotting that would eat the dead
from out of their clothes.

Cormac McCarthy

from THE CROSSING
1. McCarthy's prose
2. Line break by Glenn Buttkus