A Mothers Love

ANZAC Day 25/4/ 2024 This is a true story dedicated to the missing and the families of the missing of soldiers from the wars Australia has been involved in. A Mother’s Love Perhaps it was the machine-gun’s infernal chatter As it mowed down his mates like they didn’t matter Or was it the sight of his mates blown to pieces As the hell of the Somme battlefield increases For they found him wandering the battlefield Dazed with his mind broken and finally yielded To what he had seen that terrible 1916 day When there was no one left who knew him or his ways So he joined the lost parade Of returned soldiers for the world from which he all but faded He was returned to Australia as mentally unfit To languish in the Callan Park Hospital as the end of it Emma McQuade had never given up hope to find Her son George who listed as missing in action at that time For she scoured the docks when each ship returned In the hope of seeing George the son for which she yearned Each ANZAC Day she attended the march past Looking at the faces for George as the battalions passed Although never seeing him in this crowd She returned home with renewed hope that she allowed In 1928 a journalist contacted Emma then Her son was identified as surviving in the end After being recognised from photographs in his paper And he ensured the cost of her travel they did waiver She went to the hospital to meet with him again And with a tear in her eye she exclaimed, Darling, darling then Upon seeing her he replied, You’ve been crying , mum As she hugged him tight as their reunion was begun They were photographed together in the hospital gardens As their story was related from the start to the end She knew he would never recover from his trauma suffered But their happiness finding each other was never ended There were quite a number returned soldiers in grief to implore In Mental Hospitals from that ghastly war As well as families who never gave up hope Of finding missing sons and a way to cope So some toured the places where these soldiers lived Hoping to find missing loved ones with their love to give. © Paul Warren Poetry