Cold and Dumb
Very strange, these stones
that year on year appear
at every ploughing, grey
uninvited strangers at a feast.
We cart them off and stash
in cairns beside the fields
out of the way of the plough
and its shiny share; repair
breaks in broken walls.
Mostly though we leave them there,
occasionally scrutinize,
peer closely at the marks
and hieroglyphs most stones bear,
lines on them that some men say
once were worms that left
calciferous casts, and some say
once were words. They are cold
and dumb like dead infantry
as still they come year on year
as though they cannot bear
the silence in their deep
underground. They reproach us
as though we do not understand
their flinty glare. But other than
the sighing wind we hear
no sound.