Legacy Poem by Anna Oleary

Cemeteries, graves,
the burial for the brave,
the deserters,
and the men that had been forced into murderers.

Silent stone
marks the spot where they had been left alone.
Soldiers that had been left slain,
dying in unimaginable pain;
shrapnel piercing their skin,
bullets sinking in
to abused flesh,
marred by barbed mesh.
Their spilt blood,
bleeding into swamping mud,
sinking into the ground,
their bodies piled in a mound,
of rotting limbs;
finally freed of mans’ sins.

Poppies in garlands,
remembrance from their homelands.
Grand memorials,
pictures of the honorables.
Names carved,
in the landscape that had been scarred
from their guns and shells,
where they had all been in hell.
This is their legacy.