Four years ago today in Italy
I gathered wild flowers for a girl—
Thick-scented broom, wild sword-flowers,
The red anemones that line the ways
And the frail-throated freezia
Which lives beneath the orange boughs
And whose faint scent to me
Is love's own breath, its kiss …

To-day in sunless, barren fields
I gather heads of shells,
Splinters of shrapnel, cartridges …

What shall I gather
Four years from today?