All this week’s posts revolve around Veteran’s Day. Although this poem has the feel of historical Scotland, its intentions are universal. Those who die young and those who grow old, each have their regrets, and their own story to tell.

Not Here

Not here,
Not in this ditch,
Not in this lowly, stinking place.
Not here,
Not in a skirmish,
Twenty men a side
and mine the only death!
To die here, so close to home,
Fallen from this great march
That will carry you to the lowlands.
Gone too soon;
You will forget me before the battle begins.

Not here,
Not where she can see me.
I was a man.
Her eyes told me that I was,
Her sidelong looks — her little smile;
If I had known . . . no!
If I had known, it would have made no difference.
The fire was kindled in us both.
I heard only her moans,
Not the footsteps of her husband.
Not here.
Not like this.
Not pinned to the ground by a peasant’s fork.
Ridicule!
A death so small that only breeds a laugh.

Not here.
Not on this great field of death,
Where my own passing is made small
By the multitude around me.
Here is no sadness for a dying friend;
Sadness is too small for this arena.
Though I lie speechless,
My mouth stopped with dung
From a thousand frightened horses,
Yet I cry out,
“My death is bigger than all this.
I am not just another soldier,
My eyes to be food for ravens,
My body food for worms.
My death is huge!
The whole earth should tremble,
The sky should darken,
As my sky darkens,
Darkens  . . .”

*****

Fifty years have passed
And only one still lives.
Alone and nearly sightless,
With withered limbs and palsied hands.
An old man now, forgotten, lost,
Since newer battles have been fought by younger men.

Alone tonight, his ancient wife
Full two seasons sleeping in the ground.
Narrow bed, in narrow room, and cold.
Yet, at midnight,
On this twenty-eighth of May.
He rises up and staggers to the door
To watch the ghosts go by.

Fifty years ago tonight they gathered
Around the peat fire in old Duncan’s house,
And laughed and drank and lied about their courage;
And when the morning came, gathered up their weapons,
And their youth in their own hands.

Reece, the first to fall, so tall;
His hair so yellow that would soon be red with blood.
Not ten miles from his home he fell, and was forgotten.
Then old Duncan died, a man made young,
For just a moment,
By a girl who laughed and flashed her eyes,
And cut his purse while her husband pinned him to the ground.
Then Sandor, Naill, Kenneth, and the rest;
Twenty-one went out
But only eight came home.

And now the ghosts have passed him by.
The old man hears
The echo of their feet
Trading softly on the turf.
Fading into distance, and he cries . . .

“All the good deaths
now are gone,
where is the glory
where is the song?”