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| Picture credit: Mirrorpix http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/first-day-battle-of-somme-8318629 |
Before I went to France,
I read the painful hand-written lessons in my school book.
"I am, you are, we are, they are".
My first journey to another world.
Je suis
I did not know what was "over the top"
I could not see.
The mist-shrouded horizon.
The blue sky above, smiled.
But I knew, I knew, that life would one day end.
And why not now?
Nous sommes
I did not know what was beyond me.
I could not see beyond
The fear-clouded faces.
My new friends smiled, tense.
But I knew, I knew that they were here and now, sharing fate.
What? Now?
Ils sont
I did not know what was beyond life.
I could not see.
The promise-blurred horizons.
The angel-smiles, God's grace?
And I wanted to know, be sure that others lived.
A thousand questions left, no time to answer.
Ils ne sont pas
I cannot see what is after my time
I could not then imagine.
You are beyond my horizon.
The same blue sky above you but please understand; it does not smile.
Do you know, do you know, that life will one day end?
Why then? Why now? And how?
Vous êtes
There is no translation across time.
I cannot tell you how I lived or died.
No grammar for two lives that never overlap.
I did not know if I should be remembered
Or if the whole world crumbled in June and died by Christmas.
But perhaps you are as dead as I.
When time rewinds and verbs are practised to bring us back to mind.
My now is then, your now is already gone.
We were, we are, we can be joined.
If only in the painful writing,
Of a lesson in a schoolbook-story of another world.
