And now I remember the tall hussar

who gave me the halo of telegraph wire

which I wound round my body at the age of six.

Since then my hearing's been strangely acute,

for I watched as the workmen erected a line

of identical crosses all the way down

to the river that kept on discussing itself

out through the village, on to somewhere's sea.…

He was huge in his dolman and when he saw

my delight at the splitting and hewing of wood

he called me closer to his brilliant braid

then the world dipped and I could see the way

that men were cradled in the criss-cross tree,

hammering nonsense, till they left one man

like a Christ on the wire there, hanging alone

but listening to something that no one else heard.

My heart beat in dashes back down on the ground

and I knew that I'd learn how to understand

the metal's despatches. Now, since the war

I've crossed high passes to talk in Morse

to other transmitters, leading horses piled high

with the weight of talking, till I found my way

here to the trenches, to the news of troops,

disasters and weather, where now I'm stretched out,

nerves copper and all my circuits aware

they're transmitting a man on a wheel of barbed wire,

nothing but message, still tapping out fire.