In the marsh the curlews cry
Beneath the empty bowl of sky,
Beneath the sun and flying cloud
Earth my grave and mud my shroud.
For forty years I've quietly lain
In the wreckage of my plane.
Baled out, they said, or Lost at Sea
But no-one came in search of me.
A distant ploughman drives his team,
And rushes rattle in the stream:
In summer time the cattle tread
Heavy-footed overhead.
Yet somehow in these bones I know
Man will devise machines that show
Where metal lies, and he will trace
My plane in its last resting place.
Then will the lonely waiting cease
And these tired bones will rest at peace.
K.D. Clarke
Sent into us by John Hayes July 2015

