#anzacday
Lest we forget
Those who served us so,
Now, with heavenly angels,
Alive now, they teach us what we sow,
Shall remain forevermore or wasteless fodder.
We shall not forget them so,
Sacrifice, selflessness, valour undertow,
Remembrance of our heroes,
Provokes us to live now, lives of valour; value.
Apr 24, 2025
Apr 24, 2025 at 5:31 PM UTC
Were you brave?
Were you quaking?
Were you tough or were you faking?
Did you cry for your Mum’s embrace?
Or bite your cheek just to save face?
Did your letters euphemise?
Were they scribed with tear filled eyes?
Did you pray for silent nights?
Try to unsee grisly sights?
Did you think how life would be if you made it back across the sea?
Did you deliver a mate’s last note and hug his Mum with a lump in your throat?
Did you come home claiming glory or never voice your untold story?
Your sacrifice I can’t repay,
and so I honour on this day
a face that is unknown to me
who paid the price for my liberty.
Apr 25, 2022
Apr 25, 2022 at 4:23 AM UTC
Standing on my driveway
Gazing left and right
Thinking of the diggers
Who left their homes to fight
Thankful I can stand here
Proud as I can be
Of men and women’s sacrifice
Made for you and me
To be free
To stand on our driveway.
Apr 25, 2020
Apr 25, 2020 at 10:21 AM UTC
It was a dark and stormy night, or at least it was for our single-parent family. The rest of the neighbourhood was enjoying the kind of clear skies which meant a hard frost overnight and a slippery ride to school in the morning.
The barometer in our neat, wee house at the end of our short, ordinary street was falling rapidly, as it often did these days. My father, an Iraq War veteran - _’Honourably discharged for dishonourable reasons, and don’t you forget it. ****** fascists!’_ - was in charge of our weather. From blue skies with candy-cotton clouds in the morning to an eerie half-light of silent anticipation by late afternoon, we would end the day huddled around the kitchen table waiting for the maelstrom to hit.
We ate carefully trying not to scrape our plates with our knives and forks, and avoiding each other’s eyes. The cauliflower cheese was examined as closely as every other vegetable my aunt Kate - _‘I’ll not have my family eating slaughtered animals!’_ - served up to us. You’d think the food on our plates was the most interesting thing in our precarious little world. Peas were my favourite because you could count them over and over...until they were finished.
Wind and rain lashed our evenings regularly. Sometimes we were treated to the automatic-rifle fire of hail, but worst of all were the sandstorms which ****** all the air out of our home and stymied any hope of sleep. On those occasions we all huddled together in my sister’s bed - _’No, Alex! It’s Livvy’s turn to hold the torch. You can look after the phone in case we need to ring Dr Matt to help Auntie Kate.’_
We updated our worst-vegetarian-creation notebook and talked in close whispers about _the weather_. Mostly, we sat quietly and longed for blue skies and sunshine tomorrow, while the captain cowered in the cubby-hole beneath the stairs and screamed into my six-year-old brother’s plastic walkie-talkie. ‘Man down, man down, man down!’
Apr 28, 2019
Apr 28, 2019 at 8:18 PM UTC
I say thanks though it's not enough
To the war torn, the weary, the fearful, the tough.
To those who returned and to those who have died.
To those shunned at home and to those met with pride.
Our lives of freedom, joy and vice,
gifted at immeasurable price.
Lest we Forget
Apr 24, 2018
Apr 24, 2018 at 5:56 PM UTC