Two Soldiers Passing In One Thought Poem by Martin Swords

Who was to know?
Who could have foretold
the normal lives
where tragedy enfolds.

Tom Roberts,19, Arklow,
Fighting in his way for Ireland
sings no more Songs of Erin
in Flanders Poppy Fields.

Willy Krzossa,20, learning history
in peaceful Wummensiede
would soon close his story
in lonely quiet Glencree.

Two young lives, unfulfilled.
Two Mothers, and two Sweethearts pray.
Two graves. Two wars.
Too high a price to pay.

Am I the link alone
That brings these two together
Like students, exchanged in times
And places each had never known

I stood at Willy’s gravestone in Glencree
I read Tom’s name in Flanders list of Dead
They are together in this poem, and
in the waste of lives two wars repeated






Martin Swords
September 2010


Written following a visit with four French English Language Students
to The German War Cemetery, Glencree, Co. Wicklow.

They didn’t understand.