Stones, bare-breasted to the
sun, lie in dismembered
lines – like remnants of
a glorious battalion
straggling across the landscape.
This army is in defeat;
ivy pushing through empty
sockets and yellow stone-crop
bleeding between the cracks
into moss bandage, bleached bone.
Fringes of grass stir
beneath stone-caps covering some
unknown soldier’s hasty burial.
A lone lark, high overhead,
signals the all clear.