Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash

A bond unbreakable —
Private soldier Jack Prince by name,
Not a pillar of strength, nor with a heart aflame,
You you didn’t live a life of wisdom and insight,
Your absence does not leave a void that feels so right.
Do you rest, in eternal slumber?
Spirits dance on, like a glowing ember — 
or so the poet says — 
Does your legacy live on within my heart?
Who knows?

In every beat, love imparts
Pain which never subsides 
You leave behind cherished moments that time unravels
As we seek to navigate life’s stormy seas.
May memory guide us, forever free,
Not in grotesque, obsessive, selfish words
But in lyrical moments caught on the breeze
Uncurdled contemplation merged with another August midnight
In my restless mind the friendly old moon stalks the dawn:
It is a good time to rhyme
To build shrines to remember the unaccompanied boys
On their way to war with all its savage surgery

As the leaves cling to trees,
Sadness clings to the human heart
Before the wind of change appeared
he was dead by his own hand.
All that waiting time, 
Aborting flights into the future.
Where not everything is forgotten. 

Let us raise our voices loud and strong,
In celebration of lives lived vibrant and long,
Though they may be gone from this earthly plane,
Their spirits in our hearts remain.