This morning’s footprints
Endure upon the frosted grass
Cold sun casting
Gravestone shadows
On the manicured turf
Bright white against emerging green.
Contay Military Cemetery
The Somme
Plot 2, Row A Number 16
My uncle
13-10-1916.
Age 33
Good morning Uncle -
You don’t know me,
Your nephew, son of brother Bert
And this my son,
We’ve come to find you,
Greet you. Pass down the news.
The wooded valley slopes
Towards the rolling hills
In gentle France.
Here you rest in the highest row-
Officers mainly, from the Ancre affair.
View’s good, the river not far off.
Sometimes I see you all
Awakening
Splitting the turf
Arising
To greet the sun
And one another.
The ‘Inconnu’, the ‘Unbekannter’,
The “Only Known to God’
Shaking hands, surprised,
Rediscovering their names
And asking,
“What went wrong?”
The sound of guns no longer splits the air
Autumnal sky so vast only the mind trembles
And passing crows no longer measure
Disappearing boundaries.
Time passes. You remain.