You never know when you stop
On a corner to enquire the health
Of a cousin and his own, if he
Loiters occasionally, a watcher
In long light, a survivor of the fight,
On a corner of this deserted street
In our old town of memory – O!
Such a place! Windows and bells!
Familiar shadows, muffled yells,
The thud of lead entering flesh,
Cloud-parted mothers reaching –
‘I only aimed at their legs!’ Patch
Protesting from his enemy’s stone,
Hands clasped in forgiving prayer.
A sniper’s distraction, a lucky
Deflection, and the longest life
In the village, following the stream
Day by day to its spring. O! It must be
Not the Fallen who gather, for this
Is the moment to run regret’s
Melancholy finger over tobacco-tin dents
Buttoned by heart’s miracle breast,
To stand in the chill of November,
Colours dipped, and tight-lipped bugler,
Children to chatter on corners
Of perpetual towns, and ghosts
To run from bar to bar, from aunt
To uncle, from childhood to battle,
To stand bareheaded, free to speak,
To stand with Binyon on Beeny cliff,
To peer across a steely sea, to ask
‘What if?’ and remember, remember
Not merely the Fallen, but to stand
Quietly on November’s Fallen street,
To stand each year with the survivor,
To hear the children on the swings,
To know that all, beyond Binyon’s
Northerly horizon, will once more,
When bugles fade on silent fields,
That all, in No-Man’s-Land, will meet.