Passchendale Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Passchendaele
Morning mist hung over the front line like a dirge,
as far as one could see the landscape was gray as
a German infanterist´s uniform and the few trees
left standing had been hit by shrapnel a thousand
times. Lead heavy stillness no bird flew across this
corner of carnage, but the soldiers had gone and
the dead had been carried away. Farmers moved in-
sons of the land- ploughed fields of sudden death,
and planted seeds. And the soil, rich by the blood
of unknown soldiers, exploded in many hues of green.
Few traces of war left, except for trenches crossing
here and there, but they were a good place for rain
run off when earth got soaked and a place for hares
to hid from the farmer´s shotgun.