Memories fade

(Photo by KW,  poppy made by Pam Burgess)

Memories fade

as years march on:

combatants,

their longevity challenged,

fall in a new line of duty -

the line of time.

Their breeching of trenches,

their enforced bravery

and long carried wounds

forgotten in the grief

of their new graves.

On this day,

when poppies are king,

when Autumn leaves

tinge red with gold,

tears will fall

from thankful souls.

On this day

fears will grow

for the newly marching

who forget their history

or remember it too much

and stride toward some lighthouse,

blind to the rocks beneath.

The tower cries

The Tower cries
a moat of tears
for lives completed
in their incompleteness.
We circle round
in a dance
of remembrance
our unremembered lives
grieving.

           

A ‘last post’

assaults the sky

sounding its portal

to other times and lives,

mingling tears and blood.

Guns salute wars that were

but  echo on in wars that are

and wars that still will come.

In the going down of the sun

and in the morning

we continue them

and the mourning.

And all around on this night

fireworks brand the sky

the battlefield of our senses

scourged with persistence.