Ypres (fourth draft)

The pasture rolls a little, sweet and plain,
perhaps a little boring. Herding cows
ignore you. You unfold the map again:
blood and mud cakes the mouldboard of the plough.
Your Brabants' musty sweat-steam in your eyes,
you squint and hear the fragile thrum of cars
along the A19, that cawing crow that flies
in a long sag. Sudden strong sunlight mars
the clearest view you had of slender smoke.
You stop mid-field, removed of shade and hope.