she brings him tea,
a piece of cheese late morn
for he has been toiling since dawn
his plane shaving the wood reverently
the old oak speaking, though not complaining,
in a language the man does not understand
a coughing code for loss, forbearance, acceptance,
redemption, he hopes, for the boys keep coming…
first from Ypres, the Verdun,
now the Marne
before, he heaved hewn planks
for the hopeful homes, built their pantries
to be filled with the bread, the kind milk
now the sawn boards are for those who once
watched his labors, but no longer hear the simple
sounds of sanding, sawing
or anything at all
most of the lads do not come home,
their souls and bodies left to rot on the blood sullied grass
or buried shallow, naked in the French soil, but all get a fine coffin
thanks to the carpenter’s wife, whose babe was the first to fall,
who demands for them all, a holy horizontal home to be built
and, empty or not, placed gently in Anglican ground