Convalescent

SIT on the sun-drenched lawn, remembering
How danger crouched in the grass and sprang
When you turned your back on the quiet field.
Danger was not ahead
Where mortars roared like mad
And a sudden bomb scooped out a ragged crater.
It lay in subtle guise
In the unexpected mine
Amid the innocent grass;
It was death behind the door
In the abandoned house;
It was poison in the crystal waters of the well.
Danger was not the dark
Where earth showed gaunt beneath the ghostly flares
And rifles flamed from the hostile wood.
Danger was open day,
The Stuka from the cloud,
The sniper sighting from the friendly trees —
Danger was these.

Now, on the sun-drenched lawn, remembering
The peaceful masks of death,
The serene guises
Of its surprises,
Forget to be afraid
Of the innocent day and the artless cloud,
The guiltless grass and the open door
Through which emerges now the nurse,
Chattering in cheery morning manner,
Bearing a tall glass pitcher, the walls of it beaded with water,
Filled with crystal water, cool upon the tongue.