Wound with war's hard wire

This morning, as I was walking through the dunes that lie behind Newburgh beach, I came across this stark reminder of past dark times. Sticking out of the sand this is a screw wire picket from the second world war. In 1940 when the threat of a German invasion was very real the beach and dunes were heavily fortified with concrete tank obstacles, pillboxes, mines, and miles of entangled coils of barbed wire attached to wooden and iron picket posts, of which this is one.

But wound with war's hard wire whose stakes are strong

Apologia Pro Poemate Meo. Wilfred Owen. Late 1917