Verdunt

[AttnAttack]

I've read this poem through several times now, over many days, and I'm pleased that I still have a very positive response to it.  Initially, the meter was off but the metric changes you've made in your revision are exactly the ones I would have suggested -- rather Blake-ish now, which is ideal I think. 

I keep coming back to "the life we burnt".  It's different in meaning to "the lives we burnt" and I'm not sure which I would in fact prefer, but I tend to like "lives" purely because it makes the "we" into perpetrators who are aware of their guilt and penitent rather than simply resigned to "oh well, that's the end of that then".  Just thinking out loud.  I like when a poem forces me to do that.

The green hills where our bodies lay
were torn apart by blackberries
we hid & danced, then ran away
when clouds revealed our histories

and when the rain restores the life we burnt
I will show you God in a handful of dirt.


Previous Versions

In the Meadows where our bodies lay
Between the vicious thorns of blackberries
We hid & danced and ran so far away
When the clouds had read our histories

And when the rain restores the Life we burnt
I'll show you love in a handful of dirt.

That is the exact word and line that I continually come back to.  I have told myself to make that change several times; and then rebuked myself.  No, I think I like life better.  It implies many different readings which I enjoy.  It can be personal, as in, the life of the speaker (lives would put it as distant).  It also refers to the nature (and by extension, the world) that was burnt by the cataclysm of WW1.  At the same time, lives would put more gravity towards how many were killed so carelessly; endless waves of youth slaughtered—entire lineages wiped out; the bravest and best of of mankind chocked to death in ash and gas and fire, leaving behind the cowards and the infirm and the lucky idiots.  War is the anathema to evolution.  With Fascism, the ideal man is the aesthetic warrior; the obsession with Ubermensch, but war kills that man and leaves behind those who would not be fit to inherit the world designed by that.  Thus, the life we burnt.

Sorry, got a little carried way. I am glad you liked the poem!