In Flanders Fields (Mary Evans)
If I had asked of all that he had seen Or heard in that dark time, he might have said, "If you had seen a freckled, curly head Lie toppled on the fresh dew of the green, Or heard the absence of the birds that fled As nature would from this unnatural scene Before you, purchased death with such a clean And cold precision, broken mouldy bread With men whose every moment lies between A waking death and life eternal, bled And almost wished to bleed if but to shed The guilt of living while they lie serene, At peace in poppy fields; you might have said, To those who ask a boy of seventeen What he might say of all that he had seen, Nothing at all, and merely shook your head."
A sad and impactful poem. It really makes you think about the survivors of WWII, as someone else said. You convey so much with so little, it's quite impressive. 'And almost wished to bleed if but to shed / The guilt of living' flows in a way that's so evocative. Thanks Thomas.
I can hear the Wilfred Owen influence here.