In A Silence
And as the clods of dirt cling to you,
gasping for their last breath.
And as you see the fiery red blood
spill around your knees,
stop.
Unclasp your fingers from the cold, cold metal.
Spill instead your wings around the
wet and sorrowed air,
and take flight.
We will see you as you sore
through the purple night,
searching for your lost piece of
chalky white stone,
adrift
in a sea of peppered red,
symmetrical
to the stones placed beside it.
For when we see you
in Heaven’s cradle
we will know you have your place,
and that you can be seen,
not merely a drop of snow,
melted
with time.
Written after I visited the Imperial War Museum in London just into the new Millennium. I was really upset about the trench warfare display they had there; a 3D walk-through, muddy smelling, rain falling, people yelling trench from the First World War. I have never really been so moved by anything as I was that day. I was so upset I tossed and turned in my bed until finally giving up, turned on the light, and wrote this. I felt much better, and I won the poetry competition again :-)