Her Boy Poem by Diana Rosser

Carried high on broad shoulders from the church
this son who was slaughtered in a forest.
In his remains, remains nothing awake.
Gently he'll be buried underground.
In a small valley that used to bloom wild
sprouts a growing field strewn with cut flowers.

Her arms cling to the bundle of flowers,
hugged to her heart on the way to the church.
Her drooping head spills tears over the wild
blooms - severed in fields near the forest
where her dear boy who now lies underground
fired the last bursts of his moments awake.

She will never see him again awake
Her boy who ran through fields of sunflowers
into her arms. Hope now lies underground
in stations, basements and under the church.
But all hers died with him in the forest
Grief rages inside like a tempest wild.

Sorrow drips for precious lives that slip wild
eyed towards the gathering of a wake
in their honour - like her boy in the forest,
they'll be carried in coffins with flowers
draped with blue and gold flags to the church -
as sirens gather people underground.

So many lives brought down underground
The dead and the living and those all wild
with grief processing their way to the church,
and those who spend all of their nights awake
who have no mounds of earth to lay flowers
Those bones lie still hidden in the forest.

The trees are all splintered in the forest
Dug trenches zigzag to beds underground
While she hugs to her heart her flowers
Others unfound wait outside in the wild
While her boy who'll never again awake
Lies silently in the field near the church

She lays flowers, on her boy, felled in the forest
On the earth, near the church, shrouding her boy underground
Tears ring wild - for her Dear boy will never again awake