If I ever taught poets to read
the worth of knowing when
in life to pretend to know
what it is that makes
a boy become man,
the couplet
rhyming died and lied,
Here it is, my Ai had it for me…
----
Kipling, Common Form:
If any questions why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.
-------------
Future ever
when the glory
of military privilege lures the young
to follow a National Pride Promotion,
-another war for holy reasons
to end all wars, if we win...
then
Common Form
that one would be read,
in all my classes,
if If were ever mentioned, as essential.
------------ a response ---- how can I say I know
----- or think, why, I know Kipling felt shame
I know I would.
I have wept with men who believed such lies.
If.
If was written at the height of the Great Game in Kim,
Jungle Book was written
for the son born during the Raj
whose eyesight exempted him
but, he was the son If addressed,
as were all his upper class mates.
John died
in his first ww1 combat
at the age
of almost 18.
What son
of the man who wrote If
would not,
confess the pressure
to join the righteous push against the Huns.
What laureled poet would not regret,
the call to courage only faith
in truth commands
-we must believe the call
to defend the faith
stiff upper lip, keep calm, carry on
taken as a lesson
from a horror, drilled deep
into any real warrior,
real men won't miss
a chance to fight...
to learn the price
of cowardice
- who can resist such urge
the charge, ours not
to reason why, ours but
to do, and die
If you can keep your head, my son…
the lie he relied -- any surviving father
would not be proud, he would grieve, just walk in his shoes.
War ought never be given glory nor honor, hate is man made.
Truth validates poetic license, but I know Kipling regretted that his son loved IF. Teacher's tasks should not be any person's first National Duty... nor should the office of President beheld by a liar, but that's the way it is, not always, just now.
