The Front: A Sonnet to Wilfred Owen
Have you seen the Front? It is not as it
Used to be. Larks sing. Shells rust. Fevers cool.
The Winter of the world is in tacit
Armistice with Spring. Living waters pool
In tired foxholes. Proud young forests shelter
No man's land. Moss gilds sandbags, else they spill.
Mine-sunk craters yield to ponds where elder
Turtles sun themselves, warm amid Aisne's chill.
Only the mud is as it was—partout.
It clings to every sole. But certain fields
Block the charging sludge. In them, marble shields
—Or are they dragon's teeth?—mark you, guard you
From the mire. You rest. Your dagger's sheathed. And yet:
How swiftly Nature heals; how slowly men forget.

Matthew King