Saratoga by Mimi Whittaker

cottonbro studio

Saratoga

Late summer green hills above the Hudson

our separate cars parked on the warm black pavement

this “date” a trial at civility 

to share our toddler son.

He ran the path to the tree line,

yellow wisps of hair bobbing above tall grasses

gurgling with chubby laughter

as we took turns

with peek-a-boos, hugs, and chiding to slow down.

You’d chosen this place to make peace,

but my chest was still a gaping wound.

I felt the fallen pulling me to lie beside them

in the blood-soaked fields.  Yet I survived.

I returned last week, more than twenty years

have passed.  We came in one car, my new and 

stalwart husband and I. 

History, beauty, and the pain that set you free

delivered us late summer, almost dusk.

We walked and drove all through those hills.  

Listened to the stories told at stanchions – pointed 

at the places 

of victory and doom.  Red posts for the British, blue

for farmer rebels – lines of fighters – the final fight

won two years after independence was declared.

We looked out as tourists do, along the bluff, quiet

breeze above the place where hospitals once stood.

Thought of how the river washed the wounded 

of both sides.

Quickened as the dimming spoke in shadows 

at the last position behind British lines.

A woman’s voice instructed that she and 

other wives of officers served tea from tent to tent.

Only faintly did the voice show sorrow for the dead

and those moaning in the darkness. 

In that place of twilight shimmer, out along 

the gray grass ridge

I thought I saw you running

with our still divided son.

“Saratoga” was self-published in a collection in 2020

© Mimi Whittaker

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Mimi Whittaker

Mimi Whittaker lives in Northern California. Her work appears in California Quarterly, Fish Magazine (Ireland), Blue Mountain Review, and other publications. She has authored 5 books of poetry and short prose, as well as a nonfiction book, Happiness Is Your Purpose. Her work is informed by the people in her life. 

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