Remember It

 

“We will remember them,” we say,

on each and every Anzac Day.

The brave, the scared, the young, the old;

the ones who’ve had their stories told.

Momentum gathers every year;

some bow to pray, some shed a tear.

 

The people in our vast free land,

know freedom’s price was blood on sand

when boys all landed on a beach,

to die with cover out of reach.

So April twenty-five is when,

we honour those who fought back then.

 

Some wear the medals on their chest,

of family members laid to rest

in fields where markers stand in rows,

receiving tears as sadness flows

from pilgrims who respect the waste

of young men all shipped off in haste.

 

Then other people read the tales

of bombs made up from tins and nails.

The bookshops give us all a chance

to understand the circumstance

of hell on earth that was the trench,

awash with maggots, mud and stench.

Our flag is waved by children who

don’t really know what war can do

to wives and mothers left alone,

to live with fear of what’s unknown.

But waving flags shows they are proud,

to stand in a revering crowd.

 

Australians all:  we mustn’t dare

stop showing that we deeply care

about the soldiers, all of whom

were brave in war’s destructive doom.

Gallipoli and all its pain:

Remember it.  Again.  Again.

Caroline Tuohey