Winding sheets
bind us close now,
tight as babies
newly swaddled
in this fresh enclosing earth,
but we cannot smell it –
our senses stripped
from living.

No taste of cordite harsh
upon the throat,

no dry mouth blister
to parch the tongue:
no fear leashed,
controlled,
waiting, waiting, waiting.

No jack-hammer bursts of fire
to make the blood move
‘Move! Move! Move!’

Boots pounding,
hearts pumping,
guts churning.

No sound, no sight, no smell
Other senses rule now.

Constricted so,
we lie in the mute ground
row on neat row,

pupae waiting to emerge
into a blind beginning.

But you
will see
only the march of headstones,
precise as the ranks of comrades
who wheel and turn and stamp
in rising dust

across a living square.

There , where bugles blow
and drums beat
as the regiment parades
to honour those fallen
in the day of duty.