I’m feeling thoughtful today, so it seems like a good time to share my latest piece of Obscure Poetry.

This piece was published in a young writers’ poetry book by a friend of mine back in primary school. She spoke to me after reading my own poem, refreshingly over-the-moon by the fact that we were both young poets, and told me all about hers. ‘It’s a rhyming piece told from the perspective of a dead WWII soldier’ she said – ok, if I wasn’t already interested I most certainly was after hearing this. I needed to see the poem.

It didn’t take long I got my grubby mits on it, and she was even kind enough to let me share it here:

Watching

I watch the millions of crosses in a row
I watch the bright red poppies, in Flanders’ Fields’ grow
I watch the people lay their wreaths with a sigh
I watch, and as they salute I start to cry

I see the crumbling stonework carved with names
I know that terrible war is the one to blame
I hear the gunshots ringing through my ears
Their bitter sound has brought so many to tears

I watch the un-marked grave, it pains my heart
As I think of those men it tears my soul apart
Those soldiers were my friends brave, happy, kind
And as I watch that grave from heaven, I know it’s mine.

She doesn’t seem to think much of her poetic younger self. I, however, am quite fond of this little poem. It’s poignant, sombre, and really quite moving, and, indeed, made all the more so more so by how young she was when she wrote it.

May I remind you that my poem was about a cat. I am suitably humbled.