The Goudargues War Memorial
A grim resignation
Features within the poilu’s expression,
As if surveying the devastation
Of his homeland and its repression…
A dark spoiling
Spreads across the stone’s whiteness,
As if imitating mud’s despoiling
From trench warfare and its awfulness…
A fitful bearing
Harnesses such graceful pity,
As if pondering the death, glaring
At every French village, town, or city…
A glorious fatigue
Pervades the infantryman’s face,
As if mourning a lost colleague,
Of whose corpse there is no trace…
An uncertain tension
Hovers over this soldier’s guise,
For he now knows that in war’s intervention,
Even hope for a Goudargues hero dies…
Pete Ray
2nd June 2020
The WW1 memorial at Goudargues, southern France…
‘Poilu’ was the term given to an infantryman.
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