Homecoming
Posted: Mon Nov 10, 2014 6:24 pm
Homecoming
My Dad went off to fight a war and left my Mum and me;
he said that he was duty-bound to keep our country free.
We watched him marching through the town, his head held high and proud,
with all the other volunteers…we cheered them long and loud.
A final wave, the train pulled out and vanished down the track.
My father went to fight a war…but someone else came back.
One April eve in autumn’s haze when three long years had passed,
I rode in from the lower field as daylight breathed its last.
And there upon the homestead path a stranger walked alone,
with shuffling gait and vacant stare…a man I’d never known.
My mother wept and held him close, but I kept well away,
for in those eyes was winter’s chill…so bleak and cold and grey.
A gentle man had left our home, a man in love with life,
but now this stranger, grim and hard, returned to son and wife.
He hit the dogs, he cursed the world, he used his belt on me…
I hid away, became a ghost this stranger could not see.
My mother tried to catch his mood, to bring him back again,
but nothing that she said or did could ease his inner pain.
He sat and drank the whole day through, just staring into space,
but all the thoughts that warped his mind were caught behind a face
that never showed a hint of love, or hate or joy or fear…
a pale stone mask was all we saw as months became a year.
My mother rarely left the house, too overcome with shame;
I thought her friends might try to help, but no-one ever came.
Perhaps they, too, were trapped by grief as men came back from war…
a host of husbands, brothers, sons who’d left some foreign shore
rejoicing they were still alive, but deaf and dumb and blind,
all haunted by the battlefield they thought they’d left behind.
And so his pain was ours as well, we carried it around…
a heavy cloak that stifled love and muffled every sound.
I worked the land as I had done the years he was away.
My mother said: “It’s up to you…there’s no more I can say.”
While he just sat and drank his beer, imprisoned in a cage
that had no window, walls or door…just silent, burning rage.
He seemed to fade before our eyes, consumed by fires within
that stripped the flesh from brittle bones and ravaged fevered skin.
I found him late one summer’s day, still sitting in that chair,
his gaze fixed on the distant hills, his hands clasped as in prayer.
He could not see the setting sun, nor hear the magpie’s call,
but in his face I glimpsed the man who’d once stood proud and tall.
We shed no tears, just gave our thanks that he had found release,
for now the man who went to war could also find his peace.
© David Campbell, 2005
My Dad went off to fight a war and left my Mum and me;
he said that he was duty-bound to keep our country free.
We watched him marching through the town, his head held high and proud,
with all the other volunteers…we cheered them long and loud.
A final wave, the train pulled out and vanished down the track.
My father went to fight a war…but someone else came back.
One April eve in autumn’s haze when three long years had passed,
I rode in from the lower field as daylight breathed its last.
And there upon the homestead path a stranger walked alone,
with shuffling gait and vacant stare…a man I’d never known.
My mother wept and held him close, but I kept well away,
for in those eyes was winter’s chill…so bleak and cold and grey.
A gentle man had left our home, a man in love with life,
but now this stranger, grim and hard, returned to son and wife.
He hit the dogs, he cursed the world, he used his belt on me…
I hid away, became a ghost this stranger could not see.
My mother tried to catch his mood, to bring him back again,
but nothing that she said or did could ease his inner pain.
He sat and drank the whole day through, just staring into space,
but all the thoughts that warped his mind were caught behind a face
that never showed a hint of love, or hate or joy or fear…
a pale stone mask was all we saw as months became a year.
My mother rarely left the house, too overcome with shame;
I thought her friends might try to help, but no-one ever came.
Perhaps they, too, were trapped by grief as men came back from war…
a host of husbands, brothers, sons who’d left some foreign shore
rejoicing they were still alive, but deaf and dumb and blind,
all haunted by the battlefield they thought they’d left behind.
And so his pain was ours as well, we carried it around…
a heavy cloak that stifled love and muffled every sound.
I worked the land as I had done the years he was away.
My mother said: “It’s up to you…there’s no more I can say.”
While he just sat and drank his beer, imprisoned in a cage
that had no window, walls or door…just silent, burning rage.
He seemed to fade before our eyes, consumed by fires within
that stripped the flesh from brittle bones and ravaged fevered skin.
I found him late one summer’s day, still sitting in that chair,
his gaze fixed on the distant hills, his hands clasped as in prayer.
He could not see the setting sun, nor hear the magpie’s call,
but in his face I glimpsed the man who’d once stood proud and tall.
We shed no tears, just gave our thanks that he had found release,
for now the man who went to war could also find his peace.
© David Campbell, 2005
