{"id":83,"date":"2003-07-27T07:53:21","date_gmt":"2003-07-27T07:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/?p=83"},"modified":"2012-01-31T07:55:10","modified_gmt":"2012-01-31T07:55:10","slug":"the-prison-camp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/2003\/07\/the-prison-camp\/","title":{"rendered":"The Prison Camp"},"content":{"rendered":"

We want to prove to ourselves that we are lovers on the grand scale, tragic heroes; not just ordinary privates in the huge army of the bereaved, slogging along and making the best of a bad job.<\/em>
\n– C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed<\/em><\/p>\n

The songs are spangled with the consonants
\nof numbers, dates not written down, commands
\nthat were, most of the time, unsaid. And we
\nsing them, humping sacks of sand uphill.<\/p>\n

Each of us has, tucked into a boot or taped
\ninside his helmet, a story penned out in
\nan uneven hand. To be sent back home in case
\nsome unfortunate thing should come to pass.<\/p>\n

There is, in this, some thing gone far askew.<\/p>\n

We want to march our colors, met with cheers,
\nto wipe the bleary mud off both our boots,
\nstand on a rock and decant our sufferings
\nand dare not, for we have seen other scars<\/p>\n

on other bodies. Fingers blown away.
\nThe weary bleary wounds that fail to heal.
\nThe ones that heal too well, and are forgotten
\nand we disbelieve, for wounds are meant to ache.<\/p>\n

We look on faces caked and cracked and so
\nwe have no epics left to write. Instead,
\nWe sing whatever song the others start,
\nand keep at it, and soon enough, it’s done.<\/p>\n

And this is good… for otherwise, nothing
\nwould get done in this camp. The fires of
\nthe guard would grow cold long before the dawn,
\nand darkness would claim far too many souls.<\/p>\n

I started out like that, a while ago:
\njust moved my lips in time with all the words;
\nbut soon, I found that I was singing too,
\nin tune, at least, if off their time and faith.<\/p>\n

They’re much too small, the atoms of the world.
\nThe oldest sit and wait, as we slog by;
\nwe think, They are entitled to a rest,
\nthey look as if they are about to die.<\/em><\/p>\n

We hump the sacks of sand right up a hill,
\ndrop one or two and watch them roll back down.
\nOkay,<\/em> we say, there’s lots more left to bring,
\na bag or two more won’t kill nobody.<\/em><\/p>\n

At night, some rig together tents and sleep
\narm in arm, and touch others’ wounds;
\nand others of us sit awake and watch,
\npretending not to hear the sleepers’ sounds.<\/p>\n

Look at the soil: is it just meant to sit,
\nso simple? Not like in the photographs.
\nWhen rain falls, tunks<\/em> against our helmets, soft,
\nwe wonder, Is that how it’s meant to sound?<\/em><\/p>\n

And then, from time to time, we heard the shriek
\nbeyond the places we’re able to go,
\nof something wicked, maybe in the sky,
\nof something, but we’ve no idea what.<\/p>\n

The wretched wire that lines the fencing can’t, <\/em>
\nwe vividly dream sometimes, be real. Let’s
\nTry walk through it, shan’t we?<\/em> And we try; so,
\nmore wounds, more bleeding. Nor the first time, no.<\/p>\n

We dig through soil. Its dark and loamy soothe
\nmakes us impatient. Faster with the spoons!
\nThe quiver in us till a mine goes off
\nabove; the tunnel wrecked; the dull retreat.<\/p>\n

The random few with wild eyes plot away,
\ntuck into pockets bolts and screws and nuts.
\nThey squirrel boards away beneath the floor,
\nand piecemeal, mad construction underway,<\/p>\n

Old men in the camp chuckle, talk about
\nthe last time any fool tried that way out.
\nThey do not care to hear. The best of them
\nhave no more faith at all. We will not fall,<\/em><\/p>\n

they say through tears, and hammer, quietly.
\nThey bind the bands of wood out, smooth curvings
\nplaned to the style of hope that is in fashion
\nin this rank old place. I must admit,<\/p>\n

I almost prayed for their success. I did
\nnot, but I dreamed their hope at night;
\na strange and wooden bird took to the sky
\nand climbing higher, piercing clouds apart.<\/p>\n

The weeks passed inchwise. We began to think,
\nwould we die of this interment? Or could
\nwe find a way to see the walls as windows,
\nand find some means to make this prison good?<\/p>\n

Nobody has ever slept enough in here.<\/p>\n

One morning I awoke. It lay in flames,
\nalready, all consumed. The young men blamed
\nthe old, the children screamed, the old men sighed,
\nand then we slowly named the men who died.<\/p>\n

We picked them out between the smoking ribs
\nof the failed craft. I thought them rather daft.
\nIf that were the way out, then I should think,
\nwe’d have got out of here before now, no?<\/p>\n

The smoke curled up. It stays clear in my mind,
\nthe strange and sweet absurdity of that;
\nthe tendrils made me think of atoms and
\nthe gravity that we cannot escape,<\/p>\n

which holds us as an elderly sister might.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We want to prove to ourselves that we are lovers on the grand scale, tragic heroes; not just ordinary privates in the huge army of the bereaved, slogging along and making the best of a bad job. – C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed The songs are spangled with the consonants of numbers, dates not written […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-83","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems-kr"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xIep-1l","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions\/85"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=83"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}