Forgotten Memories

She sits by a dying hearth, an album open in her lap The cold silent room startles like a slap Mouldy images stare back from the past Prints are all she has now Memories that still cling To the old Silverfish ravaged photographs Like slips pegged to a line, flailing in a gale One minute they’re there, the next they are only an apparition Burnt to a retina searching the void, of a memory long forgotten Her finger now rests upon the “rising sun” of the AIF Of her son’s slouch hat, to which casts a shadow Across a face too young to shave Only but a boy, learning how to behave In a moment etched in time Yet those moments before it Remain immortalised within her precious album And those that came after Lay buried in the Somme He leans on a stool, one hand in his lap The other supporting his shouldered rifle strap His mouth blurred delivering a sentence She closes her eyes, with thoughts of his independence Sifting through the years of a boy in this room Searching for his laugh through a cheeky grin Probing for those silvery words etched in gelatine Of a boy leaning on a stool, a conversation frozen A mother’s memory of her son, reduced to yellowed images A mother's loss between these pages Shreds of the past fog the room Pieces of a boy lay mute, Within her reach Creases form on her brow, a tear escapes The memory slips, it flaps uselessly from the line And hangs by a thread Then it’s gone… ---------------------------------------------- AIF = Australian Imperial Force (1914 – 1918) Rising Sun = AIF Insignia Isaiah Zerbst’s Poetry Contest – Pick a Title 23 Oct. 2014