CIRCLES
Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2015 10:58 pm
CIRCLES
Maureen Clifford © The Scribbly Bark Poet
These words cruelly delivered were the words that broke her heart.
ones she had feared each hour he was away.
“We regret to inform you Sergeant Thomas G.J. Hall
was killed in action at Gaza today.”
She tore the emerald locket from her neck in her despair
as tears flowed down her cheeks like summer rain
those times they’d shared now seemed a waste – Why was life so unfair?
Her horse and meadows heard her scream of pain.
She crushed the yellow paper, crumpled it – threw it away
then chased to capture it from errant breeze
and clasped it to her breast. She doubled over wept and wailed
as if the gods of fate she could appease.
The dirt road stretched across the plain - a haze of red dust drifting
through the wattles yellow blossoms as the mail contractor passed
down the road – his taillights blinking as he slowed to cross the creek.
He’d delivered words likely her lovers last.
Tom had written – “Dawn is breaking ‘cross plains of Afghanistan
and I’ve hit the wall – I’m tired of this land.
Yet amongst the devastation and the ugliness of war
a spray of Columbines are in my hand.
Some woman must have planted them in peaceful times long gone
I’ve noticed signs of house and garden here.
I thought of you my darling and I long for the blue hills
and the call of Bellbirds tinkling in my ear.
They say we are returning home in just a week or so
Our job is done here, we can do no more
That day cannot come fast enough my love I have to say.
I can’t wait to be back home on Queensland’s shore.”
And now today the final words he’d wrote to her arrived,
words scribbled from a dead hand in her past
She tore the emerald locket from her neck in her despair
as within her womb their baby moved at last.
The dirt road stretched across the plain - a haze of red dust drifting
through the wattles yellow blossoms underneath a bright blue sky
The bell like ring persistent of the bellbirds, rang insistent
as they sent their eulogy of peace upwards to heavens high.
Maureen Clifford © The Scribbly Bark Poet
These words cruelly delivered were the words that broke her heart.
ones she had feared each hour he was away.
“We regret to inform you Sergeant Thomas G.J. Hall
was killed in action at Gaza today.”
She tore the emerald locket from her neck in her despair
as tears flowed down her cheeks like summer rain
those times they’d shared now seemed a waste – Why was life so unfair?
Her horse and meadows heard her scream of pain.
She crushed the yellow paper, crumpled it – threw it away
then chased to capture it from errant breeze
and clasped it to her breast. She doubled over wept and wailed
as if the gods of fate she could appease.
The dirt road stretched across the plain - a haze of red dust drifting
through the wattles yellow blossoms as the mail contractor passed
down the road – his taillights blinking as he slowed to cross the creek.
He’d delivered words likely her lovers last.
Tom had written – “Dawn is breaking ‘cross plains of Afghanistan
and I’ve hit the wall – I’m tired of this land.
Yet amongst the devastation and the ugliness of war
a spray of Columbines are in my hand.
Some woman must have planted them in peaceful times long gone
I’ve noticed signs of house and garden here.
I thought of you my darling and I long for the blue hills
and the call of Bellbirds tinkling in my ear.
They say we are returning home in just a week or so
Our job is done here, we can do no more
That day cannot come fast enough my love I have to say.
I can’t wait to be back home on Queensland’s shore.”
And now today the final words he’d wrote to her arrived,
words scribbled from a dead hand in her past
She tore the emerald locket from her neck in her despair
as within her womb their baby moved at last.
The dirt road stretched across the plain - a haze of red dust drifting
through the wattles yellow blossoms underneath a bright blue sky
The bell like ring persistent of the bellbirds, rang insistent
as they sent their eulogy of peace upwards to heavens high.