DAVID DUMOURIEZ wouldn’t be tempted to blow his own trumpet even if (a) he had a trumpet or (b) he knew how to play one

In Good Company

I could not conceive of bone

(especially not my own!).

Bones were of the dead and

of the old, and I was neither.

Now, in a sense, I’m both.

---

My tunic stretched out

like a sack and melded with

the soil. My brasses lost their

sheen, turned to crusted

lumps, but never seemed

to doubt they’d be revived.

---

The greatest change of all

was me. I left your world

at just turned twenty-one.

Gone, I’d guess, much quicker

than I’d come. Painlessly,

unknowingly. But gone.

---

As our new mechanic ways

subverted nature, so earth

subverted rain, submerging me.

Two more years of action

next conspired to churn and

disarrange whatever parts had

battled to remain. My friend,

I’d not have had you see me then.

---

Well, as it will, time stilled

the air and held the ground,

then stalled. Stalled, until the

forty thousandth morning when

a farmer felt my outline in a field.

Not quite where the finish of me

started, I’ll remark, but close

enough for anyone who’d known.

I’d made it to another century

somehow. Touched another

consciousness at last.

---

I got a box and bugle call;

the fit young men more

solemn than I would have

guessed. My regiment was

found at once (the patience

of the brasses!) and now it’s

just the name. I thank them,

really, but I wish they’d save

their time. While better men

are nameless, I’ll be fine.