Smithereens Press Chapbooks Taking the Oath by Tom French | Page 21

Charles Howard Bury

Not through the chalk soils of Picardy
but through mounds of the bodies of the slain,
Charles Howard Bury digs, and digging,
comes upon a pilgrim from Lhasa, moving
one body length at a time towards Kathmandu
in ritual prostration, beside whose body
Charles Howard Bury lays the bodies of the slain,
his own body, in the chalk soils of Picardy.

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