Wait for me

Wait there my boy, we must depart,
but I’ll soon be home, you’ll see.
Away he trooped with all the men
without glancing back at me.

They soon retreated from my view,
a bright patch in the distance.
How war affects the strongest man
had still not touched my conscience.

I was too young to even know
that they’d live in fields of mud,
amid the blast of massive guns
and the stench of death and blood.

But he did not keep his promise,
they say t’was not his fault.
There had been far too few of them
to make the final assault.

They finally recovered him,
when all the war was over;
a fallen hero at the end
amid red poppies and white clover.

Words & image by Janys Hyde