The war was decades ago.
They can barely remember yesterday.
Why are you asking them about it now?
They have forgotten
Winter snow
A mass of senseless rubble
Bones bleached by exposure to the elements
Bones burned
Naked in the gas shower
God at work in the chimneys
Spirits rising in the smoke.
The onset of spring brings
Night terrors
Day terrors
All the time terrors
A world in flames.
When summer arrives, fears subside.
Beauty and solitude are found by the light which mends human things.
People holiday on battlefields
River cruise with the drowned.
Let sleeping dogs lie.
In a Polish cemetery, the Commonwealth and Russian graves are separated by the tiniest of paths, its cavernous memories prevent the gardener from crossing to visit Ivan, Roman, Vladimir, and Anastasia, hidden beneath weeds.
It is important to remember.
In the already quite chilly Autumn, campaigns and disasters in watery sunlight, include popping to the shop for milk and bread, births, marriages, and deaths.
Unearthly figures, phantoms carrying an elegiac Winter of long nights, short days, and bare trees roll in.
Some old and defective days getting out of bed is to be applauded.
Light the fires, burn the flames.
A long and questioning scrutiny awaits.
Unexpected encounters with the past
A vast and silent terrain
Unforgettable tranquillity
Mercy in oblivion
A divine happiness beyond comparison
This field of the dead.
Joe Lucking writes for Theatre, Radio, and Screen. You can find him on twitter @joelucking66
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