TIME AND AGAIN Sheila Robertson
(reflections in an old orchard near Normandy’s Beaches) Gray light swings astride shattered hulks of jagged cement as dawn extinguishes night’s crystalline stars Fog and memory sift in and out of crumbling artillery emplacements leftovers from some madman’s discarded war socketed above empty beaches Death bunkers along sea cliffs caressing battle’s rusting instruments Garish graffiti mocks pillboxes in Lies confronted by Truths Battles fought in the names of gods where ambition moulders beneath wayside crosses hung with tortured Christs witnesses to buried details History like a palimpsest scraped and written over forgotten and repeated emerges in Light To gather with Hope in sunny orchards where the tang of fermenting apples scents the warming air
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