What did we do with the freedom
my father bought with six years of his life
and nine hundred miserable miles marching,
a prisoner among prisoners?
Not every year but now and then, I write about war. Armistice Day and the evocations that go with it. It's different every time with common themes running through. Yes, I want to remember those who fell - because of how and why. And, yes, I want to remember the horror and devastation. Most of all, I want to remember those who sent them or whose hubris precipitated conflict and thought that spilling blood was a solution worth pursuing.
my father bought with six years of his life
and nine hundred miserable miles marching,
a prisoner among prisoners?
You ask me to remember
what he could never tell me
of years and distance
or the distance between
father and son,
his life on the surface
of darkness half-remembered.
What did we do with a freedom
bought for blood in far-off places,
a war to end all wars, duty
and honour, hell on earth?
You ask me to believe
the sacrifice was worth it
because of the life we have now,
free, you say, from the heel of tyranny.
War goes on
in the aching hollows of the world
beyond horizons we do not see,
combatants and innocents
dying in the name of something
once claimed as victory
of right over might.
What did we do with freedom
but dig it a grave along with the dead;
we laid it to rest for shame
because we did not understand
the call to arms as a slogan
howling from our own lips?
You ask me to accept it
as if, in our time now,
the futility of war was not apparent
in the pursuits of power swaggering
on all sides;
glory is all we offer,
no higher goal compels us
as we arm and strong-arm our way
across a world under siege,
already in flames.
I ask you to look around
and see the firestorm as it burns,
full of our anger and senseless rage.
© BH, 2021
Not every year but now and then, I write about war. Armistice Day and the evocations that go with it. It's different every time with common themes running through. Yes, I want to remember those who fell - because of how and why. And, yes, I want to remember the horror and devastation. Most of all, I want to remember those who sent them or whose hubris precipitated conflict and thought that spilling blood was a solution worth pursuing.
In our time, now, we face environmental catastrophe of our own making and still, after wars to end all wars, there are so many who fuel and fund warfare. Old men still sit in power and send the armies out; generals scheme and swagger while the young are fired up and simply fired like weapons into some front line or other. It's mostly men or women who think like men who buy the myth of triumph. The same ones who rake the earth for gain and make no reparation.
A plague on all your houses.
The image, by the way, is my father's Loyal Service badge. For what it's worth.
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