Flodden: Dialogue Of The Dead

Can you hear the dialogue of the dead? Tell us the cause was worth it. Tell us you’ll not forget We are the dead, we only live as long as memory lasts Here in the quern and crush of reductive time' Great War lords fell like leaves, Into the marsh, its clammy, slug-cold burn Their sinuous, glory banners kissed the mud The dying breath of a defeated army Gave up its ghosts to hang in the dreich air A forest of ancient families Uprooted like oaks in storm, had perished utterly This battle sucked the smeddum from a nation After the hot rage of war, the salt tears of grief Death entered Scotland’s gardens, plucked its roses The field of Flodden fed on Scottish blood Thistles, sliced asunder by the ploughshare Driven into the sodden, clinging bog, The bleak, scabbed earth, Here is a corpse’s opened, leprous cheek, Crow-pecked like carrion, near a burnished shield There, a gralloched page boy moves with maggots A lover’s gentling hand welds to a sword Armour and clothing, flit like will o’ the wisps Rich pickings for the après battle looters Horses and masters mingle in corruption Tell us the cause was worth it. Tell us you’ll not forget We are the dead, we only live as long as memory lasts Here in the quern and crush of reductive time