It is the hundredth year of war.
Even though the war has been over for a hundred years
The world has been at war everyday of every year for the hundred years since.
And we remember the war to end all wars
The war that never ended any wars
The war that inexorably drew us into more wars
We remember the sacrifice
We remember those who laid down their lives so that we might be free
We say «they did not die in vain»
We say «never again»
But …
(On a road in eastern France, May 2018)
The day draws down
And The mid May sun
Sets lost horizons
As I drive roads
Running endless fields
Where the green wheat grows
Like the dead
Industrial yields
No hedge,
Lone tree
Dead turbine line
No dwelling
No spire
No human claim
Just she silo beyond
By the railway track
Comes the clanking train
Lumbering in
Fills with grain
And the dead sleep on
As the train scrapes off
And the dead sleep on
In their lonely plots
Where they fell when they fell
When this place was hell
And now this is nowhere
But it’s somehwere to be
This cemetry
Frontline to turbine
Out of life
Out of time
At the going down of this sun
I wander the crosses
One by one
By brother
By father
By each setting son
By name
By age
By country
By faith
By no cause of death,
Shot
Gassed
Blown to pieces
Rest in peace
In the silo shadow
Down by the tracks.
On the rolling road
To nowhere and back
The day draws down
Chez Nick 