What is most reflected

In water, on black marble, in the way
a sculptor catches sight in stone eyes,
in columns supporting the fables
history so easily wears in year-light –
reflected fractal never vanishing,
though wind echoes hard some names –
‘Korea, Viet Nam, Normandy
and Baghdad’. There is glory
and there is death and on an early
April afternoon, when cherry blossoms
turn the streets of Washington pink,
even for this foreigner, there is a great
and certain memory that cannot
be forgotten.