A Letter From My Father Poem by Roy Ballard

'Egyptian Expeditionary Force'
dated 30 May 1919
in father's curly writing and green ink
'Lo they are quiet once again I think,
most of them realise that they knock their heads
against a wall of stone'. Whose heads were these?
What walls of stone? Whatever ailed your pen
to say so little of so much and then
so much of such a little 'It would be
not long before Will Summers is quite well;
young Fred should soon be home and Edie writes'.
But eight months since the Turkish Empire fell;
its army fled you for safe Syria;
they murdered as they went. Along the way
they found not safety but a bloody death
beneath the hooves of Auda Abu Tayi.
Still round the camp fire tales of Auda ring
of Will and Fred and Edie who can sing?