Hands
Hands reached out and grabbed my heels as
I walked this once bloody field. They were
just everyday hands, miners, carpenters, the
hands of the butchers boy, the bank clerk,
the sordid hands of the local Johnny no good.
The tinker, the tailor, the poacher, all pressed
for the glory of war, a glory lost in knee deep
mud and indiscriminate lead. Where the Devil
played poker with fate for the right of souls,
the Ferryman busy that day. Before my feet
the Poppies fall like men in sights at duties
call, then and now the field turned red. I sit
the depression where some cannon chewed,
now overgrown with moss and memories.
Whispers glide by me, idle banter, everyday
chat, sport, sisters getting married, mothers
worried, will anyone remember me, why.
This muddy morass where men walked or
ran, never realizing that death had its own
pace. And yet every step was made of duty,
glory forsaken as a lost cause, every step
seen as one closer to home. How many
names beneath this soil, how many stories
feed these poppies, and how many dreams
still lie bleeding.
Walk the battlefields and you will feel those
hands, the tinker, the tailor, the butcher boy
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