Our eagle sulks on its standard. <br />This morning will bring mist as thick as soup. <br />Ten thousand dead! Too sullen to surrender, <br />The few survivors melt into the trees, <br />Into this grizzled swampland they call home. <br />Here even a frog's green arse soon freezes up. <br /> <br />Agricola, our commander, dines alone. <br />All night he wrote dispatches in his tent <br />Under the sharp stars, under the sky's mad eye. <br /> <br />My poor horse will be maggot-feed by noon <br />Crows flap around his belly on the moor <br />Where Flavius is roasting plundered cattle. <br /> <br />It is like this, after a battle. Killing's my trade. <br />I am a legionary. I stab and murder <br />All in the name of Empire, at an order. <br />Last night I dreamt an adder left a rock <br />Throttled an eagle like a thin garrotte. <br /> <br />The purple mountain's red with tribal blood; <br />They made a stand, poured down the hill and lost. <br />The mountain bares slit flesh and twisted metal. <br />The natural amphitheatre of the heath <br />Beheld the spectacle. <br /> <br />Ah, how their women moan! <br />They watch us pick each loved one to the bone: <br />An ancient bird croaks on a wet black twig. <br /> <br />Marcus got him a torc that shone like gold <br />Cut from a corpse whose whiskers were beer-stained; <br />I robbed a boy who stared up to the clouds <br />Of corn and plaid. <br />Relieved him of his shield, <br />Then broke his fist to see what it might yield. <br /> <br />The palm held peaty earth, no precious jewels - <br />For this, he died. For this sour scoop of soil, <br />Fought like a baited tiger. <br />We won, although their carnyx bellowed like a bull <br />Led up to Mithras for the sacred slaughter. <br />Each night I dream of sun, of goats, of wine <br />Of Mother Tiber, lush and serpentine <br />Each morning I awake to stinging midge; <br />Cold eats my bones. Death, watches from the ridge.<br /><br />sheena blackhall<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/bennachie-ad-84-aftermath-of-the-battle-of-mons-graupius/
