Lay of the Pumpkins
"A young child emerged from the ditch, a creature
Of mud and wild autumn winds capering
Like a hare across a bouldered field, across
And through the stillness of time unhinged
That sprawls patient and unexpectant in the
Place where battle lies spent, unmoving and
Never again moving bodies strewn and
Death-twisted like lost languages tracking
Contorted glyphs on a barrow door, and she
Read well the aftermath, the disarticulated script
Rent and dissolute the pillars of self toppled
Like termite towers all spilled out round her
Dancing feet, and she shouted in gleeful
Revelation the truth she’d found, in these
Red-fleshed pronouncements - ‘There is peace!’
She shrieked. ‘There is peace!’ and it was
No difficult thing, where I stood in the shadows
Above gore-rimed corpses to remove my belt
Aim and loose my quarrel, skewering the mad girl
To her proclamation. ‘Now,’ said I, in the
Moments that followed, ‘Now, there is peace.’"
