no man's land

well

how do you do

william mcbride?

do you mind if i sit down here by your graveside?

and rest for awhile in the warm summer sun

i've been walking all day

and i'm nearly done. and i see by your gravestone you were only 19

when you joined the great fallen in 1916

i hope you died quick and i hope you died clean

or

willie mcbride

was it slow and obscene?

did they beat the drum slowly

did the play the pipes lowly?

did the rifles fired over you as they lowered you down?

did the bugles sound the last post in chorus?

did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?

and did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind

in some loyal heart is your memory enshrined?

and

though you died back in 1916

and that loyal heart are you forever 19?

or are you a stranger without even a name

forever enshrined behind some glass pane

in an old photograph

torn and tattered and stained

and fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?

the sun's shining down on these green fields of france;

the warm wind blows gently

and the red poppies dance. the trenches have vanished long under the plow;

no gas and no barbed wire

no guns firing now. but here in this graveyard that's still no man's land

the countless white crosses in mute witness stand

to man's blind indifference to his fellow man. and a whole generation who were butchered and damned. and i can't help but wonder

now willie mcbride

do all those who lie here know why they died?

did you really believe them when they told you the cause?"