Brighid Schroer
A black steel bench with curved and slatted seat,
laser cut and crafted by hand,
faces the war memorial. A design along the back
commemorates — barbed wire;
silhouettes of soldiers in round helmets
trudging, standing, facing out alert,
guns at the ready;
one turns away, bowed under his bulky pack.
Two spade handles lean as if dug in trench earth.
Crosses, low and tall, overlap to form a cage.
Lacquered poppies gleam beside them, scarlet, startling.
Under the warm September sun, a low tree throws
shadow, embroidered at the edges, over the grass.
Across the road, tall sandstone houses
rest in eighteenth-century elegance.
Nothing in the scene suggests a different England
from the one they died for.
Time folds up, a tattered sheet
weighted with loss and change.
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Forty-Three Newsletter • Number 511 • November 2021
Oxford Friends Meeting
43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW