Dorothy Butts: The Parade

“Faces, laughing and torch-lit,
Passing and passing—
Laughing and torch-lit and passing!

Voices, crying and shouting,
Dying and dying—
Crying and shouting and dying!

Drums, beating and thumping,
Retreating, retreating—
Beating and thumping, retreating!

Gone! There remains but the heat
Of the August night-wind
Blowing a leaf down the street. ”