“Mametz Wood” embodies the foreseeable intersection between history and the present. The present incorporates the farming undertakings that culminate in the detection of human artefacts. Sheers alludes to the history of Mametz Wood: “And even now the earth stands sentinel,/Reaching back into itself for reminders of what happened/Like a wound working a foreign body to the surface of the skin,/This morning, twenty men buried in one long grave,/A broken mosaic of bone linked arm in arm.” The exhumed artefacts belong to individuals who were executed and entombed in a mass grave. Perhaps, the executors would not have anticipated that the remnants would one day be uncovered. The bottom line in “Mametz Wood” is that History cannot be suppressed forever; it revives in its due time. The earth is the foremost guardian of immortal history.
“The Light Fell”
“The Light Fell” recounts to the demise and entombment of the addressee. Even though Sheers does not unequivocally state that an individual has departed, the line “I heard a woman cry, not gone, oh no, not gone” makes reference to the expiration of a human being. Being ‘gone’ relates to the darkening of the light of existence. Furthermore, the entombment of the departed is abridged: “And as the soil hit the wood and the gathered crowd moved.” The imagery of the soil and the wood hints at the grave and the coffin. Ordinarily, once the coffin is laid in the grave, it is concealed using soil. Therefore, the departed person’s light departed once he/she ceased breathing.
