Remembrance Day

As I knelt down by the cenotaph,
I laid a token wreath,
Yet for my youthful years I felt,
So humble in my grief.

The blushing fields that filled my mind,
Were cast with shadows deep,
And for each soldier’s life there lay,
A poppy at my feet.

The rivers cried and mourned their souls,
And flowed their waters red,
Without so much a memory shared,
For all the thousands dead.

Until there came an aged man,
Whose weary face bore pain,
To remind us of the nameless men,
The merciless enemy slain.

He’d once lay in trenches deep as hell,
Amongst the battle tones,
The taste of blood upon his lips,
And dirt to grind his bones.

And men like he, the men of war,
Once shared his open grave,
And his presence on that day had paid,
A homage to those brave.

How he wept for those men at arms,
Who’d fought unto the last,
And the shadows in the poppy fields,
Were those his comrades cast.

I sometimes wish I’d shared their fate,
To be with those, he said,
For although my body survived that wrath,
I feel my heart is dead.

We gathered by the scarlet wreaths,
And bowed our heads in prayer,
With hearts that mourned for heroes lost,
In silent tribute there.

Then one more petal on the breeze,
Came tumbling from the sky,
And Tommy Atkins cried no more,
As he said his last goodbye.