Fool's Gold, Belgium 2014

He was not whistling cattle up the lane With his border collie, Flash, Slinking along like a wraith He was not jingling his change In his moleskin jacket, at the bar of the village pub Those times he kept like gems in a locked chest Every fresh attack turned one to paste. His finger pulled the trigger mechanically, Like a bird scarer, A pigeon firing at hawks When the mortar blew the next man's head away He pissed himself An ordinary man who knew himself destructible He missed clean water, linen, new baked bread The homely comforts Around him, thousands perished, swift or slow Stupidly, fearfully, doing the barbed wire jig Years later a Belgian farmer ploughed him up Too late for him to feel the warming sun