Resurrection
The hand of the Lord was upon
me
and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord
and set me down in the middle of a valley
which was full of bones
Ezekiel 37
A line-dance, exclusively
male,
these skeletons, arms linked,
wearing only their boots, foot-it together.
Their uniforms rotted after eighty years
of mud piled on mud at Arras
where men from the same town perished
in one more futile blood-soaked push.
Metal cap-badges, identity discs, all gone.
Nameless soldiers with one title in common,
The Grimsby Chums, joined up together
in that first blind dash of patriotism.
Here they lie in the dignity of death,
so tenderly disposed by comrades under fire.
Exposed now by a bulldozer's bucket,
these who were men come up for air.