The Avenue
A cold wind shreds
into moans
through the gritted branches
of apple trees then quietens
to a yawn rippled
across the waters of a lake.
Further up the valley,
half the trees have been uprooted
and mounded into bonfires
that smoulder through
a moonless night.
Nearby, long lines of traffic
pass on a highway where
lives, cocooned in comfort,
barrel by through drifts of smoke.
One hundred years ago
and a hemisphere away,
young men from here
stood propped in trenches
in fear of a more
lethal smoke.
Folded over
a bypassed road, an avenue
of trees commemorate the dead.
Each bears a weathered plaque.
A century on, the names
have been hollowed out
and no longer live in a memory
housed in the mind of a parent,
wife or child. Come April,
in the pre dawn mist,
they are lifted high above
their earthly station to become
the saints of a secular nation.
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