Somme
In lane upon lane, under gentle slopes,
Marooned in farms and cradled in copses
Or tiny in the landscape, exact,
Their blunt perfection each a fresh shock,
These cemeteries slow and chasten.
We gaze, attentive, awkward, and listen
To a distant raven’s raking cough
And learn that we have not words enough
To understand these fields’ furious past.
Bitter cold, a February sun leaks frost
On the clean edge where land razors sky
And stops us, between thought and clay.
On hillsides tractors slice precise furrows,
Folding earth waves to the graves’ borrowed
Ground. Old metal still breaks this turning soil,
Dredged back fresh from the years’ cold silt.
Through shoals of white clod sprinkled like lime
Or ashes, feel the drag of sucking loam.
We walk back, stalling on a stony track
Separate, caught in the special shock
That after three generations these white
Silences still fret our safe lives; the weight
Of names before and beyond us, slashed
In symmetry at every turn. And pushed
Along by the same failing century,
We have nothing to add, no griefs for country
Or creed, only belief that it is right
To see and know this, the rusting heartbeat
To connect with what we are and will be.