With a rusty bayonet from World War One
With a rusty bayonet from World
War One I weed the garden. Thrusting
it deeply into the soil as it might have been thrust
into hard bread or soft human flesh in the times
long cleansed from its
memory. When its former shine
mirrored the fear and uncertainty
of the beautiful young man who,
at the war cemetery, has for decades
been feeding flowers and weeds
as nameless as himself … With a rusty bayonet
from World War One I weed the garden …
Pulling out nettles, dandelion … When the bayonet
touches a brass cartridge in the soil
I blow in it the way I learned as a child.
The silence of the Karst is broken by an unusual sound
to which a wood-owl responds. A wood-owl
whose measured, ominous voice
fills the air all night long.