BEFORE
We have gathered them here –
the men and boys whose names
are inscribed on Portland stone
or memorialised on family graves
because their bodies lie in foreign fields,
or were never found.
We have conjured them
from their births and baptisms,
from census returns for the streets
where they lived. We have met them
as they were, before
their names on telegrams broke
the hearts and fractured the lives
of families, of mothers and wives.
Let us remember them now
before those cruel years
obliterated so much light,
when they still whistled and sang,
when they still had dreams,
when their thoughts were full
of Saturday football,
or the local rugby team,
or a pint with their dads, or sons,
at The Prince of Wales, The Avonvale
or The Craddock Arms.
When they were still holding
their children in their arms,
or trying to win a kiss from girls
they’d met on the sands,
at a dance or a market stall.
Fathers, brothers, husbands, sons
before they fell. Here they are
tipping the caps on their heads
or rolling up shirt sleeves,
or cigarettes, slapping their mates
on the back, their smiles and laughter
predating gunfire and shells.
And they go home
to those they loved, who loved them.
And us too,
their lives and deaths,
we will remember them.