At the Cenotaph. For the 11th of the 11th 2005.
There he stands so silent, so still
A solitary figure, head bowed down low,
In the dusk of evening on that special night
Though the shadows play tricks on me now.
I’m sure it’s a tear trickling down his cheek
A white handkerchief smoothes o’er his brow,
While revellers noisily wend their way
Carefully, through the flurry of snow.
They came to a halt as they saw the man
“Are you all right mate”? They ask of him,
He slowly turned with despair in his eyes
A torment that is now haunting them.
Every year the same vigil he keeps
At the Cenotaph each New Years Eve,
“They didn’t come back, we left them there,
Its for them tonight that I grieve”.
But grown men don’t cry, do they?
For just a child in those days, was I.
But now I am old, and can understand
I now know the true reason why.
Such a waste of life of so many young men,
To the trenches of death, went again.
A war to end wars such lies they were told,
It was to die those brave men came.
Each year I was taken to that cenotaph,
Watched as that old man bent his head,
But I understand at last the futility of war
For that man was my very own Dad.
Anne Palmer