A LETTER TO THE DEAD
The outpost trench is deep with mud tonight.
Cold with the mountain winds and two week's rain,
I watch the concertina The starlight-
Scope hums, and rats assault the bunkers again.You watch with me: Owen, Blunden, Sassoon.
R. L. Barth
Through sentry duty, everything you meant
Thickens to fear of nights without a moon.
War's war. We are, my friends, no different.
Vietnam Literature Anthology, a Balanced Perspective : Three Views of Vietnam, and a Chapter From a forthcoming Novel / by Jack Strahan, Peter Hollenbeck, and R.L. Barth ; edited by J. Topham. -- College ed., rev. ed. -- Philadelphia : American Poetry and Literature Press, 1985, c1984.