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So many have fallen
never to be known
as shiny memorials
are bound, like them,
to crumble with time.
No more fairy floss shows
as balloons float upward,
firecrackers fizzle out
and streamers fade.
In the night
their sorrow passes through us
leaving us still,
at peace
to take each free tomorrow
for granted.
I really like this Delta. I related well to it.
I can see how people among us fall and
we take for granted our tomorrow. It's
really a gift.
Hi Delta. A subject worthy of a poem. Mainly I'm struck by a contrast. Anzac day seems to be a curious blend of celebration and memorial, as described in your poem. It appears to lack the somberness and sobriety of 11th November over here. I've never witnessed Anzac day in the Antipodes for myself, so I admit, I only have my impression of your peom to go by.
In the poem there is a definite problem between L3 and L4. as a continuation of a sentence it doesn't work. I'd suggest putting a comma after "memorials" and dropping "are". You also need to delimit "like them" with commas. Alternatively, re punctuate like this:
"So many have fallen
never to be known,
as shiny memorials
are bound, like them,
to crumble with time."
I'm not sure how to read "fairy floss shows" I assume "fairy floss" is candyfloss, but shows could be shows, as in kiddies Punch and Judy show, or just, "in evidence." personally I think you could just drop the word.
The last thing I'd query is "Unknowingly". Again, it isn't certain whether you mean that people don't realise the sorrow passes through them or the sorrow doesn't know that it passes through them. If the first, then unacknowledged might be a better word, but again, frankly I'd just leave it out, the line is more effective without.
Thanks for the read.
Live and be well - H
PS. It did not escape me, that, in closing, your poem subtly echoes the epitaph, attributed to John Maxwell Edmonds:
"When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say,
For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today"
Inscribed on the Kohima memorial, which itself is thought to be inspired by Simonides of Ceos who wrote:
"Go tell the Spartans, thou that passest by,
That faithful to their precepts here we lie."
After Thermopile.
Thanks for your comments. I've made the changes. Yesterday was quite sombre but we visited the war graves where I was reminded of how I've lived an entire generation of freedom without a second thought thanks to the sacrifices made. It was moving reading the epitaphs of the young men and women who lost their lives serving their country and all I could give them were sprigs of rosemary and my written thanks in a visitors book.
oh wow, your post above is worthy of another poem. i notice that the poem's contrast lies between the sorrow of the fallen ones, and the careless living ones. perhaps you could elaborate in the lines? i love the metaphors, and at a guy's funeral i attended, we taped messages to bunches of white balloons and relased them.
This is a nice, almost minimalist piece that could use with a bit of paring yet. EG, I don't think you need the "like them" in L4 as the "as" that opens that line has already made the simile. Likewise, I don't think you need "with time" as that should be implied, but it's also left open to other interpretations of the ways in which memorials can crumble (such as through revolutions). I also think you can remove "in the night" as it really adds nothing to the piece, same with "at peace." Basically, I think you need to comb through a piece like this and remove everything that unnecessarily repeats an idea or makes explicit something that's already been suggested in other ways. "Still," eg, has connotations of peacefulness, at rest, but it can also be read in a completely different way as being an adverb to "leaving us," which would actually connect better with the closing of taking the freedom for granted because we forget such sacrifices. I'm also not crazy about ending it on "for granted" because, again, it makes the penultimate line too specific in its meaning. You could try something else, or just remove it altogether, which would leave it ending on a really ambiguous note, leaving "take" intransitive but with the suggestion of something transitive that is left unsaid.
I really liked this, especialy the ending. Almost perfect if not for the line "fairy floss" - there is something wrong with those words for me, they jarr with the poem.
I've had alot of feedback on this one and I really appreciate the comments. Fairy floss seems to jar with folk. I knew an old veteran who refused to march on Anzac Day because that's how he saw the parade, a sickly sweet affair and an offense to his dignity. I used the term fairy floss show for that reason.