Awaiting my next posting

I hear a distant bugle calling
bravely as the twilights falling
The plaintive notes of the last post,
when I’m alone affect me most.

As I remember those who fell
in defence of liberty.
Where they lie now no man can
but I remember vividly

Lofty, only five foot two
and his best mate big Geordie Green.
Taff Thomas and Dai Williams too.
I wonder what they might have been

Had death not claimed them one and all
selected them quite randomly.
Each time I hear that bugle call
a sense of guilt falls over me.

Why was I chosen to survive
to wed and raise a family.
When they gave all they had to give
each death a separate tragedy.

But I live on. I know not why
death chose my friends, left me behind.
The only thing I know is I
Must keep their memories in mind.

The plaintive notes the bugler plays
that drift across the fields to me
Will mark too, the end of my days
when I rejoin their company.

7-Feb-08

poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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