The Dugout Near Avdiivka

By Matthew Parish

The frost creeps through the timbered trench at dawn,

Each breath a ghost that shivers in the shell-scarred air;

Men cough in whispers, huddled, pale and worn,

Their faces smudged with soot and hopeless care.

The drones hum low — metallic seraphs overhead,

Their song a dirge that chills the marrow’s core;

And where they pass, the sleeping join the dead,

Their peace restored, though bought through hell’s own door.

A boy lies still, his rifle in his hands,

The frost has kissed his lashes into glass;

He dreamt of fields beyond these blasted lands,

Now poppies bloom where mortars used to pass.

The earth here stinks of iron, oil, and pain,

Of men unburied, broken, half-forgot;

And all the sky, once blue, weeps sleet like rain —

A mercy, maybe — heaven’s tears for rot.

O Lord, make sense of this unending crime,

Where faith is lost, and mercy gone astray;

For still they fight, in mud, in blood, in time —

And still the dawn looks just like yesterday.