Who
enjoy lark song, green vale, river bank, mountain side, call to you;
nameless, fallen warrior.
We
do not know which paths you knew well or loved nor by which streams
nor upon which hillsides you courted;
Neither
which landmarks, ancient or young were the axes of your oh, so
cruelly shortened lifetime.
We
do not know from which town you arose nor upon which street your
mother bore you into a world of care.
We
do not know which dialect you spoke, team you followed, lanes you ran
down as a lad, nor the factory or field in which you laboured,
But
in our hearts & minds we are reaching out to you, lonely warrior.
We
can only imagine the trials that you faced; the joy, the fear, the
anger, the pain;
The
pain that war makes in the soul, the ritual scarification of our
dreams.
Father,
brother, cousin, we who climb green & pleasant hills, listen to
birdsong in the mornings of our lives,
Walk
in the rain, swim in the sea, drive home to see our parents, cannot
know what delighted you;
But
dear one, now we have adopted you & will imagine the embraces,
challenges & diversions which you enjoyed;
The
songs that your heart sang, not so different from our own.
All
this makes your despair, struggle, injury & death a personal
thing,
Even
if we can never know your name nor what you left behind;
What
you may have longed for, fought for or held sweet in your mind when
you knew that death would come to take you.
That
was your courage, your challenge, your ending.
This
is our courage, our challenge; to consider what you did & what
they did to you as we look at ourselves in the mirror's eye in memory
of it.
We
thank you, praise you & will remember you as best we can.
I wrote this as a druid & a folklorist. Let us honour the fallen as men & women of the land. We come from the land. We are its expression, it's voice. So much of our heritage is lost when people go to war. So much of our folk heritage was held, historically, by men & when they were tragically lost to us as fathers, husbands, brothers & friends they were also lost to us as storytellers, singers, dancers, musicians & guardians of ancient lore & practise. War & plague; yes, let us name them side by side for they are kin; blight our history & our knowledge of our origins.
It may also be found here:
http://www.1418now.org.uk/
I wrote this as a druid & a folklorist. Let us honour the fallen as men & women of the land. We come from the land. We are its expression, it's voice. So much of our heritage is lost when people go to war. So much of our folk heritage was held, historically, by men & when they were tragically lost to us as fathers, husbands, brothers & friends they were also lost to us as storytellers, singers, dancers, musicians & guardians of ancient lore & practise. War & plague; yes, let us name them side by side for they are kin; blight our history & our knowledge of our origins.
It may also be found here:
http://www.1418now.org.uk/
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