<html aria-label="message body"><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Before the War, Together</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">In Whitherland, before the war, there were some folk who told folklore. </span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">They lived a simple, common life, a baker, daughter, son, and wife. </span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">The pretty girl with her young beau would walk along the riverbank </span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">to pick wildflowers together.</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">They gazed at trees of rusty red and skies so mauve they'd turn your head</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">when walking by the river bridge, when holding hearts, when holding hands, </span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">then picking heather near the sands, and gazing upon sunset skies and each to each </span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">with longing eyes, together.</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">They loved to cross the bridge at night and amble in the woods for hours, </span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">hide in church pews singing hymns as if the church belonged to them— </span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">affording them a special grace: a silent, tender, loving place, a place that </span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">they could huddle close together. </span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Because then they were free to race, no wooden legs, no combat dead,</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">no brothers lost without a trace and no regretting things unsaid upon the bridge </span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">or haystack bed. They never thought that things would change that year </span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">they spent together.</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Before the wounds, before the sores, before invading soldiers fled and burned the heather</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">black and red. Before her parents wept each night, the brother shot in moonlit stream. </span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">She, weeping on the bridge, the bed. The wood, the church, all seemed a dream. Because</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">now "we" was only "she" </span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">in this wretched, wretched war.</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Robin Gabbert</span></div></body></html>