La Boisselle (Raprochement)

LA BOISSELLE  (Raprochement)

 

 

Echoes of guns stuttered near

Eggs laid, best made plans -

There was so much to do.

The bed made (semen-stained)

The timer cast a

Shadowy proclamation.

Yolk - yellow sand 

So full, so gritty.

The pity of war.

 

Husband as Captain

Fatherland in your smile,

Nursing an optimistic

Tiny platoon.  All so raw.

I couldn’t fathom the

Incessant scarlet streams,

Was I mortally wounded?

 

I clot-hopped

Through ripened corn,

It became blackened.

Once vibrant villages,

Humming hamlets,

That had swarmed with life.

A family riddled with loss

Because they never were.

 

All the babies never

Brought to fruition

Gurgles stifled

The birth of death

Crosses upon crosses.

 

The land tried one

last blast before zero hour.

Birds sang in protest.

There are always the clichés, so

The sun shone as some

From a higher ground

Watched the battle

With binoculars.  With dread.

There but for the grace of…

Down to timing again.

Dawn, dusk, set in stone.

 

The shock of the shell-hole

At Boisselle,

Deeper, more empty than death.

There were so many battalions.

There were none.

It was over.

Never to be over.

 

In a darkened carriage

In a wood.

Some kind of clearing?

But this stumpy, formless forest

Still twitches with fear.

Young voices ricochet

Off gutted trunks.

Oh Mother make them stop.

 

Someone brought tea and rum.

A begrudging offering of a

Disembodied hand.

Only a temporary forgiveness?

Signatures, a pact written

In crimson, shed too recently.

Not in this shed.

This isolated pram-tram.

 

Eventually the deluge lessened.

Dribbled sporadically

Into damaged psyches.

Severed limbs have prosthetics.

Surgeons stitch some sense

Of days unlived

Back onto faces once charred.

I have heard things

Can virtually be re-grown.

 

So little bloomed then,

Soil was still screaming.

Now land buds poppies,

Yes gash-red, but life

Grafted onto

The bones of no tomorrows.

Would they mind?

Do you mind?

 

Final bell-toll as we

Crawl out in our own

Eleventh hour.  The call

For the dead is fading, though

Embryonic whispers

Skim our sleep

To remind us

Peace is a work in progress.

 

Still.  The pounding has ceased.

Remember love is never barren.

Your eyes are life itself.

Hold me, and we will say

An armistice prayer

For us

For them.