By The Left

There were thrusts under the soft soil; later, thrusts

Stopped.  Corporal Gambley squinted at it, a hand

Open like a fan, Lady Windermere’s, its thumb

Strangely imperative in the overgrown silence.

“This trench is done, Sergeant.”  Sergeant Appleby spat

The last sixteen hours of dead-counting on to the stiff palm

And wiped his nose with his sleeve, not unkindly,

As Gambley cried: pointlessly, without catharsis, like drizzle

On a desert.  Captain Quill had no time for interrupting

The exigencies of the moment, or for speculating

As to this moment’s place in history,

Or for history, past or future.  He reviewed the field, corners of.

Saw bits of: England, Ireland, New Zealand, from which

Men had sailed into iron. 

When this fucking war is over,

Private Hollis whispered to himself,

I shall take the train, south, visit cathedrals, swoon in awe

Of omnipotence:  God’s gargoyles winking

And the majesty of free will.  And I shan’t fucking ask why

Any of this happened.  Rain buries that hand now.

But nothing is as inevitable as rain.