In the burning days
Of unnatural light
I took a long drive
Into the evening
On the barracks road
past the generals' eyes
down to the seawall
where the waves stand by
The enormous lull
then the roar in the sky
and then the searchlights
over the airfield
And over the ocean
winging low
I saw the first wave
and the flares that fall
like fireflies
on the islands
In the boom and swell
from the waves to the heights
reverberations
of our old lives
Like a golden bell
that would ring through the night
and then the front moves
and we raise our eyes
in the silence of the islands