Joakim Bergen

After the War

Corpses and wreathes;

The funerary procession

Proceeds through fields

Of sun-kissed wheat.

 

The wind is mild,

The sky baby-blue;

The caskets number

Two hundred and sixty two.

 

Mellow, the Spring; birds sing

A lullaby to those eternally asleep.

The song crashes into the earth;

Now here crimson lilies dimly glow.

 

Two hundred and sixty two

Number the gravestones gray;

November. Sky, sapphire-blue.

Wreathes of dead flowers sway

 

In the freezing Autumn breeze.