SABRINA COGHLAN-JASIEWICZ
Commended - 2020 Tower Poetry Competition, 'Trees'
Burial Rites
I
Over the bruised cheek of the world
The veil of blue quiet rippled, furled
Inward as the soldiers stirred, sighed,
Disturbed the night with their sightless
Weeping. The earth, seeping purple,
Hardened itself under their trampling,
Drained last battle’s blood, and steeled
Itself against sun-up’s new spillage.
II
In the yawn of darkness, the living
Set to work. Among the littering
Of limbs, they lit upon their kin,
Closed the staring eyes, kissed their cold skin,
And took them gently into their own
Arms, as mothers might have held their sons.
With care, each soldier raised them up,
And burdened, lumbered slowly back.
III
Emerging from the shadowed coppice,
Which rung still with the crack of axes
Meeting oak, soldiers came with arms
Filled with boughs. They took them to where,
Upon a bed of broken branches,
The dead were laid out like packages
As yet undelivered, and balanced
The new wood around them like tents.
IV
The men gathered, some distance away,
While others advanced with flaming
Torches in hand. Each pyre stood
A dark mass of dismembered limbs,
With wounds still dripping their tender dew
Of blood, and the watching soldiers knew
That they themselves and the trees were one,
Fated to be felled by men and burnt.
V
When the bodies were lit, and clothed in the shroud
Of purest fire, the men’s own armour
Blazed against their skin. And so, each man,
Watching the slowly purpling sky and
Fearful of the horrors dawn would bring,
Cradled that which Sibyl told their King:
The gates of hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way*.
*from The Aeneid, trans. John Dryden