I do not want to use
the word ‘celebration’
when I think about war
and those who did and
did not come back to us,
And I refuse to throw the
word around freely on special
days when we pause to think
of what was and might still be.
I want to remember instead
and contemplate what war
does to the generations who
went with such hope and
returned in the silence of
hidden and corrosive despair.
I remember and contemplate
to renew in myself the conviction
to stand in the soft shoes of peace
not the hard boots of destruction
that trample over the innocents.
The eternal flame burns to bring
our thoughts to the price of war
and the tragic cost of peace.
25/4/2022