Statue at the National Memorial Arboretum.

                       

Figures cast in bronze or carved in oak

leave me indifferent.

I see no sadness in stone,

no beauty in Graces, or gargoyles,

or polar bears on plinths quarried

from cold-sores on the earth’s skin.

No grief in the chiselling of names.

 

For me, it is the sundown fading of a bugle,

the quiet breath of words.

 

Yet, look at this white figure by the river,

trench coat hanging from stiff shoulders,

hands manacled behind a post,

strips of cloth across his eyes.

A regimental fusilier perhaps;

a private, enduring

knots in the stomach, the soiling;

a baker’s boy with a bicycle;

a trembling clerk shot for his refusal.

He is all of these.

 

And this is how it was.

The boot emerging somehow

from the stone into today

moves me back

down the line

into a birdless dawn

poised

for the barking of the order,

the crack of bullets to pierce the envelope.

 

No longer a game,

but some mother’s son, longing for peace.

Someone’s lasting shame.

And somewhere,

sobbing down a village lane.  

-Back-