Select War Poetry

 Rene Arcos

The Dead (The Brothered Dead Lain Cheek to Cheek)

In the wind that blows

The veils of widows

All float on one side

 

And the mingeld tears

Of a thousand sorrows

In one stream glide.

 

In the one clay where endlessly

Beginnings blend with the world that dies

The brothered dead lain cheek to cheek

Today atone for the same defeat.

 

Under the earth no more than one,

One field, one single hope, abide,

As for the universe can only be

One combat and one victory.

 

(translated from the French by Christopher Middleton)