The Front

by Benjamin Oldham


The fields are green again,

the land regrown and trenches filled

beside the trees,

but mist hangs low between the trees

that men still hide behind.

The enemy is there! we cry, and quick

to fire at the trees at what must be

the thin dark muzzles in the hands

of straightened men,

although to know an enemy by sight

there must return the fire from the trees;

with only silence now we know an enemy

by thought alone.

Come out, come out,

the fields are green again,

disarm thin fingers from rifle-action

and come out of the uniform trees

a known and unknown enemy.