Murmurings In A Field Hospital

[They picked him up in the grass where he had lain two

    days in the rain with a piece of shrapnel in his lungs.]

Come to me only with playthings now. . .

A picture of a singing woman with blue eyes

Standing at a fence of hollyhocks, poppies and sunflowers. . .

Or an old man I remember sitting with children telling stories

Of days that never happened anywhere in the world. . .

No more iron cold and real to handle,

Shaped for a drive straight ahead.

Bring me only beautiful useless things.

Only old home things touched at sunset in the quiet. . .

And at the window one day in summer

Yellow of the new crock of butter

Stood against the red of new climbing roses. . .

And the world was all playthings.