A poem by the Dutch writer Bert Bevers

FORTY BOOTS

                        On seeing a newspaper photograph

Twenty men. Arm in arm. A find on excavating

for the building of a factory. Whistling together

these lads cheerfully crossed the water. A Great War

had to be fought, and they, they were to do their bit.

Through bakelite of telephones over the top and

dispatched towards bullets, life for them, at Arras in ’17,

abruptly came to a halt. Patient bones that broken-white

in a ground fertile from yet more warfare waited for later.

Under fresh clover and flowering nettles their dead gaze

ever heavenward in eaten-away boxes.

Now the outer skin of the earth has been raked off,

they lie elbow to elbow imitating a Holbein

with on their feet – and still in good repair – their boots.

(Click to enlarge)