The Unconquered Dead

The Unconquered Dead, says John McCrae, are ‘the harvest of bullets’ that ‘swish and sing like scythes amid over-ripened wheat...’ Those that travel underground swaying and squashed suffer remembered whirs of motor blades that spin, cut and bleed the grass as the Conquered Living tread wearily in the dusty heat on ground hardened by an avenging sun. Silently, a discarded Bergen lays witness to this unseen mortal memory. Its warrior is asleep, his muscles twitching like open wounds. Gathering in the crashing darkness of his dreams are ‘boundless walls of red.’