A Ghostly Forest

 

Saplings now grow where men once stood

in trenches on duck boards of wood and blood

Beneath the uneven surface of moss and grass

lie shells of high explosives and deadly gas

 

The silence is eerie, past events are still palpable

where men clad in uniforms did once stumble

Driven in a frenzy of fear they fought their way

because there seemed to be no other way

 

Young men barely out of school came to fight

called by King and Country to do what was right

These unwilling heroes responded to that call

they came freely to give their all

 

In this fledgling forest bare our dearest and the best

found in this foreign earth their place of eternal rest

Amongst the roots of those sapling trees and moss

are the remnants which signify a nation's loss