USA Memorial Day tribute (and all fallen warriors)

[brian_custer]

In Flanders Fields
BY JOHN MCCRAE

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

 

[TheOldColonel]

Memorial Day

Trod upon this field
Become the shadow
Of those who slumber beneath
Let your thoughts pass to them
Like a single tear
Full and warm
Rolling down your cheek
To fall and touch
Their parched and dreamless slumber
Dream of them waking
Enter into their sleep
Look upon their last hours
And let those hours be your first
And behold for the first time
Age beside eternal youth
Life beside eternal death
Rising up again each evening
In that beautiful night
Which once brought them rest
Find yourself among them there
Lying in that dim repose
Listening to their silences
Allowing their blood to fill your veins
To overflow into your outer self
Allow their breath to fill your lungs
To speak within you
And from you
To become their voice
Calling themselves from sleep
Rousing themselves from the depths
Beckoning themselves into the twilight
To that place where life embraces death
Where brown mingles with green
Where rivers touch the desert
Where day and night kiss
Where sky touches earth
Where the dew of heaven meets the air
To that threshold of between
Where spirits commune intertwined again
Where shadows stretch and strain
Rising at the last glow
To touch life
And the face of eternity

(By the Old Colonel)

 

[TheOldColonel]

The Grave of General Patton

If you find me here
In this foreign place,
Under this simple stone,
Know this,
I am one acquainted with duty.
I walked its appointed rounds,
Life by life, death by death,
From victory unto victory,
Through mud and muck and blood,
By their boots, not mine.
I outflanked the enemy
I owned him,
While ever advancing for the cause,
Making a good show of it for the papers,
And reveling in that moment,
Feeling a little less than a god,
But I lowered my hand on one coward’s face,
Then lowered my eyes to explain
This right decision
To explain this right action,
Then I stood still and stopped
Watching my hour of glory
Pass me by
Listening to the sound of other feet
Taking my rightful place
On the path of history
While far away my interrupted destiny
Came barreling down the street
To meet me
Appearing without warning
Declaring that the true moment had come
Which was neither right nor wrong
And me
In the surprise of that moment
Did not question
For I am one acquainted with duty.

(By the Old Colonel)

 

[TheOldColonel]

For the Forgotten

A swell of qua blue
Filled with sunset hue
A monument of waves
Above these sailor’s graves
Where once their glorious fight
Proclaimed their naval might
But then the tide did turn
As fate their victory spurned
As day slipped into night
And took away their sight
And brought them to defeat
These rulers of the sea
And proved their last devotion
To their love which was the ocean
As she offered them solace
Within her deep embrace
To calm the battle’s roar
With peace that’s evermore
To prepare a place of rest
Where the sun meets the west
While whales sing out their songs
In fading, sombre tones
That gently drift away
Like the dissipating day
Which hides their dreamy tale
For all of history fails
And forgets to tell their tales
And forgets to speak their names
In the pages it retains
In the pages it has lost
An everlasting loss
Until their legacy
Is known but to the sea

(By the Old Colonel)

 

[TheOldColonel]

For the Missing

Your silence crushes me,
So I look for you in shadow,
In dreams
In the twilight
Your absence suffocates me,
So I look for you in darkness,
In memories,
In the night
What loneliness,
What pain
What darkness
What an empty moon drifts by,
While I search for you
I ask for your face,
Your hands,
Your voice,
Your inseparable self.
But in the deepening night,
My hands don’t find you,
My eyes don’t see you.
My words reach for you.
In vain.
Inside me the night is too long
Heavy and leaden,
Sinking into an ocean
Whose shores are invisible.
But I go on looking for you,
I dig you up.
Again and again
I transpose you into shadow,
In a dream.
In the night
Until I entomb you in memory.
And face the unsayable truth
In the morning light.
You
Are not there.
Life
Has closed.

(By the Old Colonel)

 

[christofirst]

I lost an uncle and a great uncle in WWII. My dad’s uncle was KIA while serving with the 127th Infantry in New Guinea in January of 1943. My mom’s brother was a copilot on a B-25 Mitchell, shot down over Burma in December of 1943. Though I never knew them, I remember them especially today, Memorial Day. May they, and all the fallen warriors, rest now in peace.

 

[GKMotley]

…They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them…

From “To The Fallen”/ Laurence Binyon

 

[Cruciferi]

 

[TheOldColonel]

Never Again to Fade

I know that all beneath this starry sky
Must finally part and say goodbye
As even now the stars do stray
And the moon unseen drifts away
While the heart endures each grieving day
Which slowly leads to life’s decay
Yet there is magic in this night
A balm for pains unknown to light
Where kindly muses ever sing
Though the Winter failed the Spring
Though the frost unleashed its power
Upon the late and budding flower
Whose frozen form still merits praise
Even in these shortened days
In all death’s meagerness affords
Frosted petals sing Spring’s accords
Recalling life which Spring once wrought,
Proving that nothing is rendered nought;
For every life is touched by strife
Fated to slumber in endless night
Or rather wake to life more real
And to truly live and truly feel
To see forever’s depth and height
To know the parted reunite
For only love in death endures
Only this does death make pure
As once in life was precious made
And now in death will never fade

(By the Old Colonel)