The Marchers

[nhboy]

Found this on an Australian blog.....The last stanza is particularly poignant.


The March

Each April I join my mates and we march along the street
to the skirl of the pipes and tattoo of the drummer's beat.
This year I couldn't make it, my health wouldn't let me go,
so I joined the throngs of people standing row on row,
but when I saw my old mob coming, marching eight abreast,
I regretted I wasn't with them although I'd tried my best.
It was then a boy beside me whispered to his dad,
"Daddy, why are these men marching? I thought that war was bad.
You have always taught me that war is a terrible crime
but these men are smiling - like they're having a happy time.
How can they be laughing Dad? After all the things they did,
killing all those people, even the women and the kids.
I felt my face turn ashen, but I stood and held my tongue,
waiting for the answer now so often given by the young.
For there are few who care for soldiers once the dangers past -
their and their sacrifice - forgotten all too fast.
The boy's father stood and paused and thought for quite a while,
then the answer that he gave his son gave me cause to smile.
He said, "Son what I have taught you is true in each regard
so for me to explain this now is really very hard.
I think they might be smiling son to see their mates again,
or perhaps they might be smiling to hide from us their pain.
They could be smiling because when they see young boys like you,
it reaffirms in their hearts why they did what they had to do.
As for them looking happy, well perhaps that is a sign
they are glad not to be marching once again in battle line,
and when this day is ended they'll be going home again
instead of marching off to war with all its death and pain.
Perhaps that is why they are smiling Son, I really do not know,
I was too young to go to war and I am grateful it was so.
It was then for just a moment I caught the father's eye
(and I hope he understood: 'twas the sunshine made me cry)
I thought of the debt I owed him, I owe it still today,
though somehow I realized there was nothing more to say,
for the father's explanation had made it very plain:
sometimes the brightest, broadest smiles
disguise the deepest pain.