at allantide: conclusion

v.

This is the day of dead warriors. It’s changed its name so many times.

Before this war and the war before it was the feast of saint martin.

The end of allantide before the rest.

The holy final season of the year that winds out until the first old advent candle.

Sometimes it’s easier to talk to the living that the dead

Pass with me through this field of poppies,

here are those who finally earned the secret of silence

And it does not matter what comes tomorrow if we can stand in today.

I got up in darkness at six in the morning to keep two minutes silence,

and in those moments, shuffling from foot to foot to maintain half waking

balance, I remembered men who never left the war, whose minds were the war

houses, drugs and whores could not make them forget

remembered a man whose wife and his daughter were lost of his war

and the madness of the slaughter and how they aren’t here anymore.

In two minutes remember the forgotten

who did it for you,

who did it for you,

who did it for you.

On these days we are like Mary Magdalene,

gaunt and thin, turning over limbs

of branches, searching through headstones saying,

is this the body of my beloved?

where is my beloved?

I haven’t written to him I haven’t written to him because I gave

myself to him

I haven’t written to him, written to him, because writing cost

money,

and honey I can’t spend myself on those who wouldn’t spend

themselves on me

I lay under you in the dark room

I have myself to you in the sea hut

And now all you have for me is nothing.

The dog is in the kennel

The witch is in the well

I sit upon the sofa

And you sit in your cell

This is not the time to sit here sighing clinging to what wasn’t or

what never was

Eleven days ago we entered through the door of the half living,

with desperate lanterns and hopeful songs, across from us,

in a gate to the west, the dead came one by one,

and we thought we gave to them, and they knew they gave to us,

and now the giving is done, and hand and hand, we walk out of

the North Gate together

Every one has lived

And everyone has gone

And everyone will come again.