00
rv
They gave you nothing,
those young men, frantic, sliding
from duckboards into craters,
drowned by what they carried.
How could they give anything -
their guts churning brown water -
mindless, blank-eyed or gibbering,
even their own names forgotten?
Do you think they could still love
stumps like blackened fingers,
foul gas breaking the surface,
shreds on a barbed tangle?
Your thankyous are relentless:
rank after rank, you keep coming
in French, Flemish, English
as if someone could still hearyou,
the land itself waving
lts wands of golden willow
ts) over streams buiging with cress
as the little clouds race across
W
Slf they should march back
through this field of green corn -
gm a face, a pair of boots, a laugh
appearing out of nothing -
WO
you could thank them in person.
