"Here's where the
difficulty was: exactly here"
Where I am standing with my back to the ploughed slopes
On which so many thousands died. These silent ghosts
Call to me to re-turn, to watch them breast the bags,
Clamber 'over the top', break woodenly into
Their lumbering runs, come on, and then go down in sheaves
Each time the gunner catches them. His concrete nest
Is ruined at my feet; and when I bend to scruff
My hand across the clay surrounding it, I find
The stuff I take for root and bramble catches me.
Its barbs are rust-encrusted now, and on their twists
The oxides flake to ochre surfaces, as if
This German wire itself still holds, and weeps, their blood...
I
asked David to write something about himself and the inspiration for this
poem:
"I am 47, and for 25
years I have taught in York, UK. My subject is English Literature, and my
students are 13-18 years old - a very rewarding task. I write, and am
content to complete 4 or 5 satisfactory poems in a year.
My own 'serious'
reading was triggered by reading Sassoon's "Complete Memoirs of George
Sherston" so 'The Poetry of the Great War' has become my special
subject. I accompany visits made by students of English Literature and
English History to the WWI battlefields of France and Belgium. These pupils'
parents and their friends have been inspired to visit as well. I went with
such a parents' group in 1998, and we were fortunate to be in the region of
the Somme on July 1st.
Bugles sounded over the
fields; and I startled myself when I stooped among the poppies of the field
and found three or four lengths of heavily rusted barbed wire - the machine
gun post's defences. At this location, "The Pope's Nose" itself
was a slight protrusion from the German line, which contained a machine gun
below Thiepval.
|
1 July 1916: Ration party of
Royal Irish Rifles rest before the battle
|
It is now almost
adjacent to the Ulster Memorial Tower - which is the explanation of the
place's name. The Ulster Division of Irish Protestant Troops were facing
this protrusion before and on that terrible morning, and named it because
they were determined to punch the enemy protrusion - the Pope's Nose."
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