Passchendaele   We held our fire, stood there, ready, awaiting command, blood thundering in our ears, boiling and freezing in our veins, some prayed to God and some profaned and death was here, striking the rest of us dumb at the sight of them coming, a heaving tide of them crossing the muck, toward us, closing, a tide of men and fire and smoke and steel, the screaming devils of hell’s own choir, and we stood there, each knowing that to turn was to die, and the tide was upon us, and we could see their faces, their twisted mouths, their eyes, and the first of us fell before the captain’s shout was cut short by our thunder, the tide convulsed, regathered itself, found a gap and kept coming, kept coming                                                         for my grandfather     © Michael Fleming Brattleboro, Vermont May 2012