Soldiers making tea

WATCHING the platoon

boil tea on fires made in
the forsaken courtyard,
switching a wireless

to a febrile croon,

I had not forgotten

barbarian hearths blackening
proud pavements in Verulam
when Rome had crumbled

Goth-ridden, rotten.

And now, writing letters,

stands the grave ghost of
Sidonius by me
whose age too was bound

in disaster's fetters.

I am cowed and beaten—

the crucifying fruit
from history's rood-tree
of knowledge and death

once plucked and eaten.

11 February 1945