ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

I LOOK WITH MOTHERS EYES


Beneath the pine a piper plays in puttees and khakis
atop the bluff a bugler blows The Last Post, on the breeze
lingers the old lament that bids one rest at end of day,
the tattoo known to all men here as one mate’s sent away.

The duty of the dead is done and they can rest in peace
in serried rows with other mates – for them at last , surcease.
They fought the fight and gave their all, no more of them is asked
but those they left behind remember, every day that’s passed.

The notes hang in the evening still, a lingering refrain
of other places, other times, and others without name
who fell upon some foreign shores and never made it back.
Each man was loved by someone. Each Tom, Jim, Bill and Jack.

Gallipoli and Ypres and the trenches on the Somme
the deserts of Afghanistan, where rifle shot and bomb
have taken life forever, the jungles of Vietnam.
The killing fields still lust for flesh, and we their fervour fan.

I find it quite ironic, that we gather and we pray
world wide to pay our homage to the dead. Those gone away.
And yet as one war ceases and we bring our troops back home
another war is starting up as if it must atone.

So when pray ends this madness? Tell me when will we know peace
Is war the God to whom we sacrifice both man and beast?
In Pagan times they did just that – we claim we’re civilized.
To me it doesn’t seem like that. I look with Mothers eyes.

Maureen Clifford ©
The Scribbly Bark Poet

A powerful message, Maureen.

There's an interesting (and very sobering) article about Gallipoli and the Western Front in this morning's Age at: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/wester ... 2x9v7.html

David

Gee that's a good one Maureen and "Tell me when will we know peace?"
Never???
Wazza