The bombers buzz overhead,
angry bees ready to destroy the rival hive.
We run for cover, through the mud and filth,
into our shelters and wait for the silence,
wait for the bombers to leave,
wait for the bombs to stop,
wait for the distant screaming to die,
wait for the thoughts of the mountains of home.

The land here is flat
but I reckon in the future the craters will live on,
the landscape pockmarked with disease.
There used to be a forest here,
but all the trees are long gone,
the timber lining our trenches
keeping them from collapsing.
Through the noise, a daydream appears,
the forests at the feet of the mountains of home.

The wait is over,
I climb the ladder and peer over the edge.
A bullet whistles past my ear,
ricochets off my helmet and I lose my balance.
I land in the mud and filth,
a thin rat scurrying into a hole.
Someone shouts an order
and I have the strange sensation I’m floating.
As I’m carried back into the shelter,
I dream I’m flying over the mountains of home.

Unfortunately, I live,
ready to die for my country all over again,
fighting for something called freedom.
I wonder if the enemy fight for the same thing,
if they know its meaning more than I do.
I do not stand alongside those who sent me here,
I am here with my brothers,
singing songs long into the night,
elegies and soliloquies to the mountains of home.