The Reenactors BY JAMES APPLEWHITE
N C L R ONLINE
113
COURTESY OF LEE HANSLEY GALLERY
North Carolina Literature in a Global Context
In shadow of a farm-crossed wood I see Reenactors along the crest of a hill – those below, whom they are bound to kill, living in anger, trapped by their history. Up from the swamp-line, gray soldiers advance across a meadow, into the whistling missiles. Hit, they fall and arise, pain stiffens their wills to live again this bloody glory since they were mistaken, and must take this chance to fight unconquerably, while those who inherit their stories will go with them in spirit, up the long slope, across the bodies, in reverence. There at the barricade, those whom they kill and are killed by rise from their uniforms, embrace across the trenches and yet leave no trace of cessation on those still alive in this turmoil. Only the living could forgive the fury of those still burning, uncanny moments that sawed trees through with bullets, only those present could forget and bury the tattered shadowy revenants, embodied passions walking visibly undead, violently thirsty for a living blood, killed not defeated, in battle unended. Where so long a cause lives on in anger its region becomes a religion, where a father slaps son for no reason and all must cherish this glory in error.
GEORGE BIRELINE (1923–2002) was born in Peoria, IL, and taught in the School of Design at NCSU 1955–86. After service in World War II, he earned his MFA at UNC Chapel Hill in 1963. A year later, an exhibit of his works at the prestigious Andre Emmerich Gallery in New York sold out. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1967.
Soldier (oil on canvas, 29.75x19.5) by George Bireline
Here at the barricades, a young man dies for his ancestors, voicing those choirs that sing in his head. Spectral others accept his spirit a moment, their sighs only echoes of their dying cause – voices of the others who shed true blood, yet now wish the blue figures good, as their brothers in death – who realize it is only theirs, this war they reprise – theirs, this purgatorial slope and the wood – only theirs to re-shed this sacred blood with mute cries, then fall and arise.
Bireline’s works are in the permanent collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, VA; the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh; the Mint Museum in Charlotte; and the Ackland Museum of Art in Chapel Hill. See more of his work at Lee Hansley Gallery.