They sat and smoked the cigarettes they’d rolled
Laughing softly about the way the grass grew here
Compared to how it waved in smoother seas back home
How here the knots would make for rougher fields to run
Here they kept their fields trimmed as best they could
With sheep or cows or any animals who’d serve
To graze like scythes with teeth that saved them time
Scythes to aid these young men racing over open ground
These hedgerows growing thick were barely shields
Against the bullets fired by enemy troops concealed
Hard to see but shot at as best as they could
While dodging death as they ran from thicket to thicket
Exhaling smoke in clouds that masked untested combat skill
The night before the war would break out here with their first chance
To face unfriendly fire with every nerve and prove
Their mettle to be tried and shown in battle to be true
He watched time twist in smoke through the starry night
Behind these hedgerows growing row on row
Vague memory of words he’d heard some time ago
Made him shiver with the sense they’d all been here before
Lanning Lee 