Fresh Pome: Remembrance
Remembrance
We met in the fog
Ammunition run out
Swinging rifles like wildmen
He had a good moustache and a bearing
His nose was a perfect line
He fought formally
The way camp had taught
The wood and the bone
The meanness and will
He flickered
- His sleeping son
His nurse’s song -
His hands too low
Then falling away
Eyes big and tearful
His colour gone but
The blood in his hair
Empty hands wave
And feel for where the man had been
We met in the fog
Ammunition run out
Swinging rifles like wildmen
He had a good moustache and a bearing
His nose was a perfect line
He fought formally
The way camp had taught
The wood and the bone
The meanness and will
He flickered
- His sleeping son
His nurse’s song -
His hands too low
Then falling away
Eyes big and tearful
His colour gone but
The blood in his hair
Empty hands wave
And feel for where the man had been