GHOSTS

GHOSTS

Closing on midnight
With the great starry fields
Lying still and quiet before me,
Moonlight falling like water
On the silent trees,
The dark earth furrows,
The creaking ice puddles,
Flickering on the ghosts of all those
Caught up in war.

Oh God, even the other world weeps
To see them drift over the empty fields,
Mixed up in their uniforms, their torn coats,
Their boots and slippers, their pretty shoes,
All creaking across the long top acres
Of bone cold stone.

Sleet tears freezing their eyes,
Frost settling on their faces
To shimmer in the half bright starlight,
Aware now of what was in front of them,
One by one dropping into the freezing mole hills
Littering the grass.

The accommodating earth tucking them in,
Nice and cosy.
Their frozen eyelids slowly closing,
Letting them sleep for ever and ever.
My own tears hurting.

                                     ©2023 Gwen Grant