April is the 'Cruellest' Month

From his collection, Nothing But Praise, POW Henry G. Lee's painful memory of April, 1942:

Prisoner's March

(Death of a Friend)

So you are dead. The easy words contain

No sense of loss, no sorrow, no despair.

Thus hunger, thirst, fatigue, combine to drain

All feeling from our hearts. The endless glare,

The brutal heat, anesthetize the mind.

I cannot mourn you now. I lift my load,

The suffering column moves. I leave behind

Only another corpse, beside the road.