Spring Returns to the Dardanelles...

...to the battlefields of 1915


1.

Bequest to the Past

If they could come back
on such a day, and witness
this tranquillity -
the way the sea curves
close to the shore, soft-
lipped waves barely moving;
and the wild romance
of the Judas trees
like a lost dawn
in the cemeteries,
irises banked deep
below Shell Green
as spring finds Gallipoli -
the bitter campaign
of nineteen fifteen
would seem a macabre,
desperate dream.


2.

On the ridge
called Chunuk Bair -
April 25

On this morning
stands of pine
rise numerous
as fallen men;
dark green regiments
bear witness:
legion are the slain.

Conifers have grown
from splintered limbs
and shrapnel scars
to reach commanding height
on Chunuk Bair
and rear up from ravines
to camouflage all trace
of killing-fields.

Near mouths of trenches
where new forest
marches on the ancient field
that heard the rumours issuing
across the Hellespont from Troy,
a wolf appears
between the sand and trees
and sniffs the unquiet peace,
his muzzle trained
toward the riddled mass
of cliffs and spurs.


3.

Dawn at Ari Burnu

Beyond the range of human song
a bird calls to the hidden sun;
the slow tide seems to stumble
on a phrase;
tentatively, clouds take wing
in colours fugitive as dawn;
on the headland, batteries
of cameras flare like guns.


4.

Through the eyes of a child

You searched among blood-
clots of poppies, where the shrapnel
still lies rusting
in the groins of dunes.

You turned to me with tiny, petalled
harbingers of spring: one blue, against
the evil eye - a tender, fragile thing -
one yellow wildflower, minute,
a child's view of Gallipoli.


5.

The Dardanelles
revisited

Again I come
to the cold straits
where the tides
weigh life lightly;
where black ships
brought a gold freight
to crimson the walls of Troy;
where grey ships
carried my countrymen
for sea to bleach
on the brink at dawn,
as youthful nations
sacrificed their sons
unthinkingly as stones...

Still the waves
advance, retreat,
debriding old impurities
that fester
in the wounds of memory...


6.

April Morning

Morning sings
a song of spring,
blossom dense
on wild peach trees.

White orchards
vibrate with wings;
fields green
under veils of grain.

They came to die
in spring,
when all the earth
fulfils its promise.

They own the earth
they lie in,
on Gallipoli,
and it owns them.