The Menin Gate At Ypres

My Father took me to the Menin Gate
lest I should not knot that lives were lost
to make me free.
Then at the cemetery I fell asleep
while he walked along the rows
on soft grass between the crosses.
 
Then I heard the tanks roll round
a heavy grinding hell-raising sound
that crunched the gravel.
Before the echo died came boots of soldiers.
I seemed to see them travel
along the road ahead all brown
and swinging trouser legs.

Above the
sound of boots
and breathless gasps of marching men
were wheels and wheels
and rumbling trucks
the swish of lighted flares
gunshot glow and bombard shoots

I could not wake myself, I had to hear
those boots upon the gravel.
Then as I woke myself it seemed like blood red rain
was falling down. But through the mist 
those white crosses rose, arms out, began to fly
above the cemetery up into the blue sky.

Like flocks of swans they rose 
with strange gladsome sound
and disappeared into the blue-grey sky,
time passing as so many joined
the upwards wave of spirits
above my exhausted self.

Soldiers of the Commonwealth lie here,
black and brown and grey and white
in peace, I hope, not hearing what I heard,
the rosary of sorrow, Passchendaele's site
that kept off foreign troops from Belgian soil
until another night.

Copyright © Terry Vannecksurplice | Year Posted 2014

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