On an Autumn Sunday 


The wind whips through the leaves, which whirl and fly
Among survivors in the city’s heart
 Like ghosts of summer, till the gun’s report.

Exposed to no worse than a camera’s eye ,
One man went back, to stand, now warm and dry,
Across from where, beside a dull canal,
The German he was told to snipe once fell
And slithered head first down the bank to die.

Silence and leaves, then, at the bugles’ hint,
That shot again, that fall, that slow descent,
Those legs stuck up for days from watery sky.

Jerome Betts  

If you have any comments on this poem, Jerome Betts  would be pleased to hear from you.