SUNDAY IN BARRACKS
Little silences
Sit in the corners
Munching their finger tips.
I lie stretched flat upon my bunk. . . .
I count the cracks in the pine-boards above me.
I am alone.
These others who fill the air with talk
About right and wrong . . . life and death . . .
With heavy-nailed footsteps
And sometimes heavier profanity . . .
What becomes of them on Sunday?
Dinners . . . the beauty of women . . .
Pretty talk.
Camaraderie beside the lake . . . fellow for fellow,
What does it matter?
My little silences slide along the floor . . .
Clamber up my bunk
To grin at me in my loneliness.
Then I think of the millions
Who have none for whom to be lonely,
French, English, German, Russ. . . .
What does it matter the language?
We are all one,
Levelled in solitude.
And I laugh at the silences,
And laugh to see them scurrying back to their corners,
Gibbering.