They suffer most whose memory <br />Cannot let pain die, <br />Who in the night their misery <br />Becomes an endless cry, <br />Whose sheer desire to kill the pain <br />Creates each day anew <br />A pain upon the pain that was <br />Until the first they knew <br />Becomes an open raw abyss <br />Rending heart and soul; <br />Until the caldron's smouldering hiss <br />Overflow the bowl. <br /> <br />They conquer last whose war has left <br />On victor's distant shore <br />A suffering mass who don the past, <br />Reliving o'er an o'er <br />The sword thrust in the mud and dust, <br />Brave hope abandoned there. <br />For some return only to learn <br />The empty shell they bear <br />Will ever echo to the blast <br />Of that sojourn in hell. <br />Bearing home the Trojan germ <br />Of miasma for their knell.* <br /> <br />These, who know death yet walk away <br />And are transported home <br />To live each endless night and day <br />The corpse they can't become <br />These prisoners in a searing breast, <br />Alone in surging throng, <br />Who cry out for relief and yet <br />Lay not aside the wrong, <br />Now clutch at pain they can't forget <br />Words to describe unknown. <br />The memory in each suffering heart <br />Is his and his alone. <br /> <br />*Miasma: noxious odors from decaying matter, <br />once thought to cause infection.<br /><br />Adeline Foster<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/nam-s-unmourned/
