Sample Poems by Pamela Bernard

February 1918
American Yankee Division training camp,
just south of Neufchateau, France

Rain has been continuous—
supply roads are muck beds full of lorries
sunk up to their axles, sodden
horses so weak from the crossing
they have forgotten their commands.
Drill fields are ankle-deep in mud.
At morning formations Raymond drops
from exhaustion and nearly drowns.

Tomorrow they leave finally for the front.

March 1918
Chemin des Dames sector, the line north of Soisson

This once was the forest primeval, greenwood
of myth and legend. Motherland,
Fatherland, Arcadia—now
a midden of offal.

June 1918
Bois de Belleau, northwest of Château-Thierry

Division Headquarters had opened
in a chateau at Boucq. Swans glide in the moat.
The gardener hums as he prunes the wisteria.
Creaking windmills still grind the peasants’
corn and church spires stand guard
over the sleepy village.

Not far away the village of Rambucourt
is being ground to dust.