Frozen Field

They say we won
I asked what we get for it
Nobody answered

The ground is still frozen
The spade goes in and stops
Two years unploughed, so it has set hard
It takes three days to break ground like that
I did not go to fight
They said I was past the age
So I was here
I got through the winter here

They say spring has come
But the ground is still frozen
They say we won
But the pot is still empty
And still I plough
Because you plough or you don't eat
And still I plough
Because it is the only thing I know how to do

Last year we ate all the seed
There was nothing to eat in winter
So we ate what was meant for planting
Do you know what that means
It means there is nothing to plant this year
And still I plough the field
For when there is something to put in it
Waiting on what I don't have, digging what I do

They say spring has come
But the ground is still frozen
They say we won
But the pot is still empty
And still I plough
Because you plough or you don't eat
And still I plough
Because it is the only thing I know how to do

The spade caught on something
I thought it was a stone
It was not a stone

It was a man
Lying face down
A piece of armour still hooked on one shoulder
And everything under it torn away
I took hold of that shoulder and turned him over

It was my son

I sent him last autumn
They did not take him — he went
Twenty years I raised him in this field
And in three days he was gone
That day I could not say anything
I could not even say come back safe
And the words I did not say
sat in my throat all winter

They say spring has come
But the ground is still frozen
They say he is alive
That the breath is still in him
So I lifted him onto my back
He was light
Something I raised for twenty years
cannot be that light

I did not plough the field that day
I did not plough it the next day either
Three days I did not plough
And spring came anyway