The Ridge

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