The Ridges is a poem I wrote about Vimy Ridge – a battle from WW1 that the Canadian Corp won, but at a substantial cost in lives lost and wounded.
The Ridge
Reflection’s wise. Its true insight flies
Throughout our minds and forever binds us
To eternal life that is devoid of strife.
Just peaceful thoughts, not restless, nor caught
Into a web of war to tread
Pure madness bred our way to be
For as one we brand an ancestral land
As our spirits rise to embrace the sky
And shed away our fears.
Our thoughts of home, as our mothers roam
Among our graves, their faces brave
To the sadness here of men with fear
Yet for our nation’s prayers we died out there.
For our home sweet home, so far away
That knowledge bears our passion, flares
Within our hearts, to love, to shove
Our fears aside and run in stride
To get away from there.
Over top we’d go in whistled floes
That plundered us within gun sight foes.
Such madness…crushed, our brothers flush
With abject fear with those guns so near.
We prayed in silence for our leader’s guidance
For in them we trust, and as Canucks we thrust
So far ahead though we walked with dread.
With the barrage we shudder, our blanket cover
Oh God we’re scared.
The earth it shakes… please mothers take us
To your arms and away from harm.
We fell in silence as there’s no pride in violence
We looked ahead for behind ’s our dead.
Their faces seared, no longer feared
Just darkness now with thoughts that bow
To a light that’s gone, forever done.
For now it seems life’s passion stream
Is ebbing some for our time has come.
We fought for glory, each life a story
With silent breath we faced cruel death.
Our youthful brash ‘gainst madness, crashed
Into the mud, the cold, the blood.
That Ridge has been a horror scene.
A Ridge that bears our lives and shares
Blood curdling chills, then silence… killed.
And down we go with our cries now still
Just silent prayers to loved ones shared…so far from there.
The death knell rings for our lives and brings
A peace you share from that Ridge out there.
Is a peace we paved to our silent graves
With a peace we share in God’s love’s lair.
We were men of arms, a brotherhood
And beyond that Ridge, your nationhood.
With souls set free our spirits now see
Just peaceful lands and a national brand…your nation‘s free!
Yet horrendous loss this madness cost…Canadians!
–
Please…remember us.
© John Morrison, Manotick Ontario, 2005
You can find this poem and others in a book of poems I put together called:
“Little Poems From The Great White North” – available through Amazon.com or .ca
Available through Amazon.com or .ca
