These are things which must be accounted for:
slaughter under the white flag of surrender—
black massacre at Fort Pillow; our new name,
the Corps d’Afrique—words that take the native
from our claim; mossbacks and freedmen—exiles
in their own homeland; the diseased, the
maimed,
every lost limb, and what remains: phantom
ache, memory haunting an empty sleeve;
the hog-eaten at Gettysburg, unmarked
in their graves; all the dead letters, unanswered;
untold stories of those that time will render
mute. Beneath battlefields, green again,
the dead molder—a scaffolding of bone
we tread upon, forgetting. Truth be told.
–“Native Guard,”
Natasha Trethewey
What does this poem express about how the past affects the present?
To make progress, sometimes people must let go of the past.
People have a responsibility to speak the truth about the past.
The past informs who people are, but people need to look to the future.
The truth about the past can never be adequately expressed.
