POEMS FOR REMEMBRANCE DAY 2023

BATTLE HORSE

From meadows sweet with grass and hay
and trees, to shade him through the day.
A stall to keep him warm and dry
a bed of straw on which to lie,
they shipped him off to fields and mud,
to rain and fire and cannon thud.

His head is high, his legs are strong,
bearing his soldier, into the throng
where ‘charge!’ he hears and ‘charge!’ again,
the fall of men, the cries of pain.
The smoke is thick concealing foes,
then flash and bang and down he goes.

His body falls upon that field
with laboured breath, his fate is sealed.
But through the smoke blue skies he sees,
a river running through the trees,
some cool green grass on which to lay
and watch a passing summer’s day.

No guns to pound his deafened ears,
nor white of eye reveal his fears.
No thick mud trench, no barbed wire,
no bullets, bombs and constant fire.
His tired eyes close, the time has come –
his final gallop from the Somme.