When you receive this letter I’ll be gone—
But know the blood I gave was of free will,
The battle nears it’s end yet truth fair known,
Few men remain with boiling blood to spill.
There is no food, the water gone for days,
Proud uniforms the gauze that carnage binds;
The trenches are a muddy vermin’s maze
And young men’s whimpers haunt them like the winds:
Yet what is life if not some valiant cause,
Some proposed triumph that we strive to claim?
Sound action that would give the mighty pause,
Where true hearts brave to bleed in freedom’s name?
Please do not shed a tear for me, no do not cry;
From first breath drawn, we are but born to die.
© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.
Loubert S Suddaby poems 