I Veteran

 

 

I try,

            Ten maybe fifteen years in a row to attend

It has been! I walk past at speed,

Anxiety rising within a throat of hurt,

My jaw clenched as I negotiate the crowd –

But my stride is slowed and I catch glimpses

Of the veterans in uniform,

And my tears are checked beneath

A stonewashed face.

 

            Pain comes in many forms,

The physical is just the physical but

The anguish of my spirit beckons

Solitary and silence and forgiveness of my soul,

            Why is it so hard to join them?

            Why can I not share my grief with those –

Who offered sacrifice?

Why is the eleventh hour of the eleventh day

Of the eleventh month so painful –

That I die inside every year the last post is sound

From a melancholy horn?

 

            I guess I may never know within the

Confines of my guilt,

            For as war beckons every lad – an adventurer,

There is a silent fortune of tears inside for the

Lives ceased so quickly,

And maybe,

            After all I have endured,

            And the fact I’m always there

            There bids an argument - A quarrel,

That I’m so lucky to still be here alive,

To be tending to my children,

And still, be living life!

 

Michael J Waite 14^th November 2010.