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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
Copyright ©
Paul Warren
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