Reveille, Or Something Like Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

(for the dead of World War I...in eternal life)


is he the one standing there trying to recall
was it Camelot or Avalon he loved when he was small;
Atlantis?

have words grown underground, no longer to be found

the blocks he played with as a boy

each letter like a castle he could capture toy by toy


what was warfare then


the game of let's pretend a fortress in a garden close

the Christmas leaden soldiers out for a stroll

by the piano with the piano rolls


out for a lark. if not a song.

is he the one waiting there so long

for the gas lights to come on


like pale green swamp gas, just a spark

it flickers and it's gone into the Dark

the slogging through the mud


the gaping wounded and the life to come

suddenly made real, from all our zeal

jagged as pure lightning


on a filmstruck reel

we're off lads we're off the planet now

and vivid as you please


and sorry for the way we took our leave, somehow,

Time out of mind...the sweethearts kind;

from grief, they're blind and cannot feel us near

and do not see us in the starry spheres,


the ghosts we left behind.


mary angela douglas 11 november 2018