Below the old church tower
Where masons, time and weather
Repair the scars of war,
Centuries of flaking slabs
Huddle, lean and whisper.
And you will find another
Boneyard round the corner
Where marguerite and rosemary
Rub aromatic shoulders
On incised marble letters
Over South Staffs infantry.
No bones gathered slowly here:
All fell the 8th July,
Save one unlucky fusilier
Who sports a day in June
On his white stone.
He bears a similar cross,
Shares a similar cliché -
A wife, girl-friend or mother
Declares both his and her world
Came to an end that day.
Adjoining graves repeat:
Corner of a foreign field
And so forth - assert
We never will or can forget.
The words seem so unreal and yet
An epitaph or two stand out:
Sadly missed from Mum & Dad
& Ann & Tibbs
Invites a sudden sigh
For some anxious, noisy,
Brash or battle-hardened lad
Who ceased that 8th July.
Buried in no clear order
Of name, rank, badge or number,
Set evenly apart to cover
Some hurried pit, a sapper
Two captains, a rifleman,
A corporal, an unknown soldier.
Their levity and pain are over,
A blackbird sings and now and then
A stranger takes a look,
Tries the gate, returns to pen
Another name, another date
In the Visitors’ Book.
Old soldiers add a Thank you mate,
Words no worse than many,
When all is said and done,
Behind the flowers which overrun
Private soldiers from South Staffs
And their engraved ranks of epitaphs.
©Terry Hodgson2020
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