We have been through them now, the silver anniversaries: VE-Day, the Bomb, the wreck of Japan, all misted in quaintness—and still they keep coming, brown women swirling past, the armies somewhere behind them, burning the villages: always the same, the same weary women each year, muddy skeletons lugging the brass pots, tugging the delicate children, camping in culverts, eating grass – and the rich bombers run on their shabby targets; kids in helmets inch through torn jungles; somewhere at sea, ships lob shells at the horizon – it is all a memory of old men: the brave planes limping home, balding heroes sending their sons to glory, the bleeding always the same, like father like son, breastplate and buckler rusting in a dream of blood we move through, open-eyed, sons of our dreaming waiting for all the memories to fade.