The Old Soldier

The old soldier wept
Sixty years late
For the boy he killed
Outside a burning French
Farmhouse.

I commanded him to stop
The old soldier said
As the boy pushed
A motorcycle
Empty of fuel.

That damned burning house
The old soldier said.
All that noise and crackling.
The boy just kept coming.
Halt!
The old soldier said twice.

No help for it.
And the boy pushing the
Dry motorcycle died
In the lane.

Sixty years!
The old soldier said
And every night I see him
Every night begging him
To stop.

Sixty years is a long nightmare.

The old soldier is now dead
Gone the way of all flesh.
But I am become
The custodian of his nightmare.
I cannot escape the scene
The flames
The boy with the dry motorcycle
Wearing a German uniform
With a machinegun
Strapped across his chest.

Just a boy
My father said.
He was just a boy
And I killed him.

I wonder
Have they yet met
In those Elysian fields
That know
No war?