Thread: I Cannot Think of You Beneath the Earth

I am a student actor. I have just finished a living history project where we spent three solid weeks in character, living, eating and breathing WWI Ypres. I was a field nurse, engaged to a private. It was all fictional, but meticulously researched and lovingly put together and felt tremendously real. In the last few days of the project they sent one of the units over the top, and my fiancee was shot in the throat and killed. In character, the person I has created wrote a poem for the husband she never got to marry.

I'm afraid I have very little perspective on the quality, because it was just so full of emotion at the time - written through some very real tears, I think mainly for all my great uncles who died fighting there, and the women they left behind.



I cannot think of you beneath the earth.
The image stops my breath.
Your bones lay not in clay in Ypres,
nor anywhere at all.
You are gone, but did not die.
I saw you not, but felt your breath,
your loving hand on mine.
You did not die, you simply left.
I am sorry I was not there to wave you off,
but wherever I go,
whatever simple thoughts and deeds I use to pass my day,
wherever I go,
with every beat of my heart,
with every laugh that rings forth,
with every dark sigh spent,
wherever I go,
there shall always be a part of me,
soft and intangible as breath,
forever held, and kissed; embraced, asleep,
beneath the dirt in Ypres.

I've been reading a book of War poetry recently, works by well known poets and more obscure hands as well. Some of the poems written by the women at home are incredibly moving, though they may lack the incisive sting found in Sassoon or Brooke. Your poem needs some refining, perhaps. Pare back some of the excess (there's a bit in the middle that verges on the saccherine). That will allow the ache to pulse strongly.

Enjoyed the read, though!

I really enjoyed this quietly melancholy love poem. The first part has a wonderful melodic flow. But-Lines 11-17 messed with the flow and became choppy. Great subject matter though, I am looking forward to reading more. Thank you. Peace...Jul


Oh -BTW--You are gone but did not die--Gorgeous line--that for me- defined your wonderful Poem.