Mary Carolyn Davies, 'A War Wedding'

[duathir.livejournal.com]

A War Wedding

My life is made of five long nights
And five swift days, like birds whose flights

Have taken them to where the earth
Below them, is a small, strange thing
Of very little worth.

My life is made of five bright days
And five kind nights. I heard you praise

My beauty, in your faint, hushed tone
That no one else has ever heard.
And this is all I own.

Five nights and five strange days, and then
You died to save your fellow-men.

I never lived until I saw
Within your eyes that thirst and awe.

And I shall never live again.

by Mary Carolyn Davies