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Letters from the front 1915
I am writing these letters to someone who no longer exists for me and if she ever did, she is lost somewhere in a past I can no longer visit. I write them for myself. I do not know why it is important I put words to what I feel and see but if I ever do make it back to the past where she waits, we can read them together and she can help me understand what happened.
Letter from the front. September 1915
Is there a world where guns are silent
The birds are not afraid to sing
And nightmares do not invade my dreams?
I want to be your hero my darling but tonight
I sit in my foxhole shaking with fear
Wishing there was a place where I could hide.
Then I remember lying in your arms under our special tree
The final summer when it was still possible to hope
And I long to be with you, my darling
A man died today because of me I killed him
And I felt nothing as he lay in front of me nothing
For this man who had not harmed me
We did not even know each other until he died
At my hands. My soul is stained with his blood
Stains that will never go away.
I tell you this, my love, so that if I do not return to you
Someone will remember the man I was before I came here
Remember the good in me and not this stranger I have become
They lie those who say war is a great adventure we are fighting for peace
They say and I want to ask them what peace? Is it for you those with power
Or for the simple man who only wants to live a quiet life with his loved ones?
Parades hide the noise of those who die in muddy trenches under grey skies
The sun no longer visits they hide the tears of those who mourn friends and lovers
No, I tell you darling, war is an adventure for old men safe at home
May the glory be theirs.
Letter from the front. October 1915
I smell roses
We march and march through endless days
Rain mud and grey fog surround us
I smell roses and remember your garden
We sat there late at night
The scent of your roses wafted to us on gentle breezes
There is no sleep my bed is wet the guns never stop
Did I ever tell you about James?
We met on the boat taking us here to war
Neither one of us could sleep so we talked and never stopped
The words kept the fear away made us think of home
Well, he died yesterday. The guns were angrier than I remembered
And I told James to stay down if we were quiet
No one would know we were in the trench
No one would come to kill us.
I don’t know why but James stood up and the bullet tore into him
He fell back in my arms and I talked to him
Until I knew he couldn’t hear me.
They wouldn’t let me take James with me I had to leave him behind
And still, I smell the roses and remember your garden
Sometimes I ask myself if I am going crazy
And a voice answers that losing my mind
Is the only way to survive
If I am not here, then why do I hear the guns
Smell the blood and drown in mud
While officers scream to keep going
The enemy is waiting just ahead for another battle
I promise you, darling, that I will come home
And so, it ended
Copyright ©
linda eide
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