In the Winterberg tunnel
the dead wait. They know
neither cold nor heat,
nor hunger nor thirst;
these trappings of life
they left behind
on the fourth of May
more than a hundred years ago.

Below the footsteps that tread 

on early snow above their tomb 

the dead wait. No one

remembers where they rest.
Only weathered letters 

in distant graveyards recall them 

as beloved sons and brothers
who fell far from home
on the field of honour.

*

The moon retreats

against the advance 

of headlamps and flashlights. Men 

mutter curses and muffle their grunts;

their spades shift the soil;
snow turns to slush,

and the dead wait

for the silence 
that will surely come

as it did in the spring of '17 

during the six-day search

for survivors.

At last

the wounding work

of the shovels ceases.
Darkness again 

envelops the hillside

and then

the single stroke of a bell

pierces dust and bone 

and desiccated flesh

and in the Winterberg tunnel

the dead wake.