On Stanford Training Area, Poem by Roy Ballard

Stand-to at dawn! Our well dug-in platoon
watch down their sights. The sky is turning green,
like coral sands beneath a calm lagoon
through sunny, waveless waters dimly seen,
the deeps of emerald, the pools of jade;
cold, dawnlight pools in which the morning steeps
its muddy cloths in every dyeing shade.
Along the forest ride the morning creeps
and catches on some madcap enterprise
a heavy-footed hare who halts and squints
and sniffs at us in comical surprise.
Beside a pit, long dug for sharp-edged flints
by other warriors, withered now to bones,
we lie in company with roots and stones.