I decided to get out of my room for a little while earlier today and walk around the State House grounds since I live all of a 10 minute walk away. As I was walking, I read all of the inscriptions on the monuments I read. This was inscribed on the monument to the soldiers of South Carolina that died in the War Between the States. This isn't something I wrote and it isn't technically poetry, but it really touched me so I decided to post it.

Let the stranger,
Who may in future times
Read this inscription,
Recognize that these were men
Whom power could not corrupt,
Whom death could not terrify,
Whom defeat could not dishonor,
And let their virtues
Plead for just judgment
Of the cause in which the perished.
Let South Carolinians of another generation
Remember that the state taught them
How to live and how to die,
And that from her broken fortunes,
She has preserved for her children,
The priceless treasure of their memories;
Teaching all who may claim
The same birthright
That Truth, Courage and Patriotism
Endure Forever.

I decided to try and write something a little different than my usual poetry...this is the result.

Dark is the Night
by: Eric Fulmer

Dark is the night
Heavy is my heart.
The cold of winter has entered my soul
And has begun to fester there
Eating away at my essential being.
No longer is there joy in my life
No longer do I eagerly await the sun rise
For each day is but another repetitious nightmare
From which I can never awaken myself.
My dreams are become folly
My ambitions are in vain
For nothing can change the nature
Of each tortuous day though which I suffer
And nothing can save me from myself.

I find it interesting how much a person's mood affects their writing, especially with poetry. Most of my poetry tends to be about the outdoors, which is my true passion, but the mood that I am in when I take up my pen to write determines what I write about. When I feel hopeful, I write about things growing, when I am looking to the future, I write about the never-ending sky, when I'm upset about something, I write about storms. The more interesting moods bring about the more interesting poetry.

I feel I can now truly connect with this quote by Soren Kierkegaard, "A poet is an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and the cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music... and then people crowd about the poet and say to him: "Sing for us soon again;" that is as much as to say, "May new sufferings torment your soul." It seems in my most unsettled moments, my poetry takes its most volatile form. It seems to have a mind of its own in these moments and runs off with me merely tagging along writing as fast as I can. But, most often, these are not the poems I want to write. These poems are merely the excretion of the turmoil that goes on in my head.

My goal is to perhaps, one day, channel this emotion into all my poems.

Mocking from the Mountains
By: Eric Fulmer

Alone on a mountainside I sit in peace.
For here, I have no chain.
Like those that bind me to a path
Far below in the cities of pain.

Up here the air is fresh and clean.
Not weighted with smog and fumes.
Here I live and think and breathe
High above such smokey plumes.

These mountains are so much more to me,
Than great monoliths of rock.
They are an escape from life,
Which I sit up there and mock.

What Sailor is This?
By: Eric Fulmer

I sail this night across the land,
As is my usual fare.
For the sea, it has no hold on me,
To bar me from passing there.

As I sail, my bow parts the clouds
High above that misty plain,
And the waves stream down to touch the earth
To become a shadow's bane

Well, with part 3 done, this ends my epic poem, The Song of the Land. Let me know what you think. I'm very open to other people's opinions on what I write and want to know what I need to improve. Thanks

The Healing of the Land
By: Eric Fulmer

The war is over, peace has returned,
The fires are extinguished, the lessons learned.
But for the Land, no battle was won,
No treaty of peace can undo what was done.

For decades of beauty have been erased,
The work a few years cannot replace.
Perhaps never again will the beauty exist,
That filled my youth with eternal bliss.

But slowly, it appears, the land is repairing,
The damage caused to it by our own erring.
Small tips of plants sprout up through the earth,
Coloring the Land with the green of rebirth.

A rich, soft carpet recovers the ground
That once was trampled by those battle bound,
And one by one, birds return with their singing,
Soon the new meadow with their songs is ringing.

But one spot remains bare, bereft of life,
As if in mourning for some undue strife.
No grass there grows, no birds there sing,
A patch in memory of some great thing.

This spot was once home to the old, majestic oak,
Whose limbs in the storm of war were broke.
It's great beauty; nothing can replace,
And as I thought of it, tears streamed down my face.

For in my mind, this was more than a tree,
It was a companion that gave company to me,
It stands in my memory, the epitome of my life,
Gave me strength in the face of strife.

Never again will I sleep at night,
Born in the majesty of its height,
Or lean against its side each day,
Listening to the birds singing their lay.

For never again will that great tree stand,
Exalted high in the midst of the land.
Some things, it seems, will never truly reclaim,
The beauty once held before they were maimed.