Tyne Cot Cemetery
Blood-red the berries the yew trees bear,
Flesh-soft amid the shining dark, yet the fruit falls
Uneaten and ignored, for few birds feed here.
Bone-white the headstones, rank-on-rank,
Shoulder-to-shoulder, some named, some not,
Yet all cared for tenderly, with offerings
Of flowers, crosses, letters and the like.
I did not weep; I could not.
For to begin, one could never make an end.
Instead, I tuned it out, I numbed my soul,
Silenced the internal howls of horror,of grief
For a generation wiped carelessly from the earth,
All hopes and dreams and loves gone, lost,
In a sea of endless mud and politicians’ lies.
October 6th 2017,
Tyne Cot Cemetery, Ypres, Belgium
This poem appeared in The New European last week.
Brilliant Viv, brilliant.
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