The Ode
from For The Fallen

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."

Binyon (1869 - 1943)

DIGGERS TEARS:

I listened with tears to a digger with demons,
while trying to fathom the possible reasons,
for fathers and brothers and uncles and sons,
to lay down their lives with blood, guts and guns.
Just to save some land in a faraway place,
on an earth they now kill from core into space.

Their trials and sacrifice will n' er be in vain.
Let us pray their headstones survive acid rain.
Grandfathers and fathers, lost, buried or burnt;
their legacy to all - a lesson well learnt.

Marched off with belief in those that did lead,
while paving a way for corporations that bleed
this planet of ours and all her resources;
while clogging her air and natural courses.

From corporate assassins who kill earth for dollars,
different the diggers - men filled with honour.
The battles they fought continue today,
though not the same armies and not the same way.

We have no rifles, no gas masks or tanks.
Survival's the will that swells out our ranks
of the loved ones, the missed and the young eager's rejected;
the ones left behind - the ones they protected,
so long ago on those foreign shores
and on battlefields blessed with the horrors of war.

The memory of you and your comrade’s true blue
still burn in the hearts of us chosen few,
whose children are free in each dawn and sunset.
Generations will remember ... LEST WE FORGET!

© 11.11.1998