FOR EDWARD THOMAS

1 2 6 Y F O R E D W A R D T H O M A S E L I S A B E T H M U R A W S K I Easter Monday, Germans on the run, the Brits whoop and dance in mud and snow, celebrate the rout. A pause in the shooting, Thomas leaves the dugout, is about to fill his pipe when a stray shell whizzes past his post, nails his heart. He falls, unmarked, on each page of the war diary tucked in his pocket a bizarre arc of creases from the shock wave. Preserved in the poet’s crabbed hand, a line he wrote just days before: And no more singing for the bird. ...