Can you imagine?

They really believed it was over

Not just the War

But all war

Forever

----

Sunny morning in Flanders

crisp November morning

eleven o’clock

cutting cold north wind coming down

over a moonscape of trenches

shell craters

dogs hunting around

and the sound of a solo bell

from what remained

of a church tower

calling the world

to silence

There they stood

quietly

heads bowed

remembering those who’d died

and those who came back hurting

It’s over

The bell says so

Duty done

Their lives accordingly sanctified

Now they can think of Christmas

free from the shadow

of having to go back

to No Man’s Land

----

And off Southampton

iron black clouds

bear down

confront the still

grey sea

defining

a fixed and lonely horizon

silhouette of a troop ship

underway

going home

bound for Gibraltar

then Suez, Aden, Colombo, Fremantle

Anzacs from Gallipoli

and the Western Front

what’s left of them

hoping to be home by Christmas

summer heat

country town

beers in the pub

king, country, and empire saved

And never talked about

----

My grandfather among them

wounded

pensioned off to a farm

bound to fail

in the Depression

that would follow

the roaring twenties afterparty

He was an engineer though

and landed a job

maintaining the reservoirs

supplying Sydney with its water

up behind Mt. Kembla

Cordeaux

a town in the bush

where he kept everything in order

house, property, equipment running

a place for his wife and children

to leave

as soon as they could

His sons

that is, my uncles and my father

ready willing and able

old enough

just in time

to join the Air Force

go back to England

King and Country commanding again

as the Great War

and the global edifice built

in Paris in 1919 

gave birth to World War II

----

And the chance

once again

to fight the Hun

secure for the world

                             a just and lasting peace