Armistice Day.
November 12th, 2007Back, by Wilfred Gibson
They risk me where I’ve been
What I’ve done end see.
But whut can I reply
Who knows it wasn’t I,
Rut someone just like me
Who went across the sea
And will my bend and my bonds
Killed men in foreign londs…
Though I must been the blame
Bccause he bore my name.
[Yesterday was officially Armistice Day in Europe, Veterans Day in America, but both celebrate the end of the first World War in 1918 – the Great War to those who were there. I thought about doing the usual, “In Flanders Field,” by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, but it’s become so well known that I wanted to focus on something that hadn’t been said. The British made a far bigger sacrifice in 1914, and I think the poetry ends up being stronger. Read the original – along with some other British poems.]