War And Remembrance - Ww1 - The Lochnagar Mine Poem by Paul Warren

It was a sunny autumn day on 9th November 2011 in France
The weather was cold and the sun popped in and out in a cloudy dance
We turned off the main road and stopped about a kilometre down
And stepped out of the car and walked over the undulating ground

It was French farmland with villages in the distance had a story to tell
Of darker days a hundred years ago in the Great War of Hell
There were others who were in silence as they walked forward
We slowly came across a chalk strewn path to an explanation board

It explained that on the 1st July 1916 as the Battle of the Somme began
The British fired a mine that tunnellers had placed under the trench of Germans
We looked down on a cavernous hole that gave a Pals Battalion the upper hand
On the day when 20,000 British soldiers were lost at Haig's command

They say that in a split second the German soldiers failed to exist
As the explosives went off in a moment to break the trench line so it wouldn't persist
The British went forward and passed into history in this and other battles
When you see the Lochnagar crater today it is difficult to understand war's rattle.

© Paul Warren Poetry