Remembrance Day ---Still

Late Tribute to Our Veterans

This poem is two weeks late, however it is still relevant since November is still with us and our wounds, like our memories, are still open and raw.  Please forgive my  "harping" on a theme that can never grow old. This poem  "wrote" itself in my head the other night and did not let me sleep so I had to just get up and put my pen to paper.

 Another  Tribute to Our Veterans 
No one stops at that graveyard now
No one stops to stare
At those endless rows of  crosses
We're so used to seeing them there.

We gather there just once a year
A tribute for to pay
To thank them for their sacrifice
On each Remembrance Day.

But those crosses keep on reminding us
Of the souls we can't forget
Those strangers who gave up  their lives
For folks they had never met.

Those souls were someone's brother
Those souls were someone's friend
Once they held a baby
Once they held a hand.

But that heart  has now stopped beating
That laugh is forever still
That mind has now stopped dreaming
Of goals they'll  not fulfill.

Remembering

A Final Tribute

T'was a day to remember

That his mother could not forget

A day that’s still so painful

That haunts her nightmares yet.

An agonizing, poignant sacrifice

Was demanded of her that day

When her only son was taken

To fight a war so far away.

He was just such a young lad

So innocent, naive

But he died before he had a chance

His grand dreams to achieve

Now strangers tend his gravesite

With grateful hearts overflowing

For a life that he gave up for them

Thus peace on them bestowing.

But his mother and his family

Still mourn his untimely passing

As they stand there on Remembrance Day

His final tributes now amassing! 

War's Legacy

In Memory - Europe’s Silent Legacy

Carefree tourists, singing gaily

Age old melodies, simple words

The unfolding panorama of ageless Europe - France

Rushing past our tour bus

As we speed along the highway.

Wide open fields of grain

Thick, lush, seemingly endless

An emerald sea, undulating

Heaving, breathing, sighing

With each gust of the shifting breeze.

Suddenly, the singing voices hush

A gasp, an exclamation!

All eyes turn.

In the midst of the silent growing grain

A massive graveyard!

Erect, neatly defined rows, the white crosses

Command our attention.

In stark contrast to the harmony we felt

Just minutes ago

An eerie chill clambers up our spine

And grim reality battles disbelief.

Yet the crosses stand

A silent memorial

To brave young men

Strangers in a foreign land

Who went to war

Never to return home again!

Only silent graveyards remain

Desolate, lonely, unadorned

Amidst a sea of emerald grain

Just a simple melancholy reminder

Of countless lives laid low

Outsiders in a land not their own

Who gave their lives

That a stranger might live

Might sing.  Might laugh.

Might plant these fields of grain

That wave so freely in the wind.