Nearing Placid

A dark shape rows
Across gun-metal water
Beside the road that runs
From Arras to Albert.

Beneath the stretch of pan-tile glow
And house ends flashing white,
The wood that burns is that which sprang
From mulch of blighted fields.

And we are almost tranquil
Below the flapping lapwing
Where trench lines still stain the land.

Nearing Placid was shortlisted for the Fathom Writers Poetry Prize 2010