In the sky the howitzers no longer explode, <br />The cannoneers rest next to their guns. <br />The infantry pitch tents now, <br />And the pale moon slowly rises. <br />On yellow fields in red trousers, the French are ablaze, <br />Ashen pale from death and powder. <br />Among them German medics squat. <br />The day becomes grayer, its sun redder. <br />Field kitchens steam. Towns are put to the torch. <br />Broken carts stand at roadsides. <br />Panting cyclists, hot and tanned, loiter <br />At a scorched wooden fence. <br />And orderlies are already moving <br />From regiment to division.<br /><br />Alfred Lichtenstein<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/after-combat/
