Poem after War

For Wilfred Owen

We live: and this is earth; no tongue of fire

Shrivels our flesh into a stinking grave.

Peace is our portion, and the strong desire

To wrest from life the gifts it never gave.

Born to a world bewildered with its sorrow

And endless healing of its wound, among

The quick and dead we wait for our tomorrow,

And pity them we only knew were young -

Oh, utterly like us! We did not know them

Save as men seen upon a darkening hill

Who labor upward and are gone. Below them,

Our feet are set to follow where the will

That sent them to their death may send again:

And if we fall, we know we fall in vain.

L. Robert Lind