It's a beautiful day
in the graveyard.
Blue skies.
Cool, but not cold.
The ideal temperature
to be an overdressed military man.
Do ghosts amble among the stones
on days like these?
I imagine most of these men died
on quite different kinds of days:
Rainy, cold, muddy days.
Muggy, buggy, malarial days.
The kind of day that just won't end,
but to fold into a sleepless night.
How many died,
not from spall or Minié balls,
but because they just didn't have the will
to drag themselves through another day?
from exhaustion?
from demoralization?
How many died under beautiful blue skies
on an idyllic autumn day?
I don't know whether
there're good days to die,
and even less whether
there're good days to be dead.
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the !n(tro)verted yogi 
Beautiful! I love it!
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Thanks
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Your fine verse brought Eric Bogle’s song No man’s land to my mind.
I recommend it.
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Thanks. I’ll give the lyrics a read.
I actually had McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields” in the corner of my mind when composing it.
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And I will read McCrae…
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It’s a short three-stanza piece, very lyrical.
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Yes, as soon as I read the first line I recalled it.
Thank you
DD
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It was the first poem I memorized as a schoolboy for a class requirement. Sadly, I picked it because it was short and it’s rhythm made it easily memorized.
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But it beats some of the Boy Scout standards that are, let’s say, short and memorable.
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true
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