Reaching Back…
Inspired by Peter Brook’s painting,
‘Slight Mist At 1000 Feet’…)
It is like some kind of retreat at the Somme, degrading
And a feeling of sneaking off, in some kind of military disarray,
Heading for the possible sanctuary of the farm buildings in slight mist,
Passing a flailing, stiffened tree, wintering, maybe scorched by a shell,
Whilst the sullen stumps have no hanging gate to support…
It is like feeling the ache, the cold, the damp pervading
Filthy, distressed boots, puttees bloodied, unravelled and astray,
As rusted barbed-wire cuts protest and a bayonet wound scars a sore wrist.
Humbled and fumbling, scrambling and tumbling, escaping the hell,
Past the sodden stumps, which my weight might support…
Pete Ray…
8th February 2026…
Very odd that seeing this Peter Brook painting made me think of a retreat at the Somme in the winter of 1917, when snow lay heavily about.
It was as though there might be some respite, some warmth, a hot drink perhaps awaiting inside one of the buildings, or more likely it would be an abandoned farm, cold and unforgiving…
Just my imagination, running away with me, as
The Temptations once sang…
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