Last Action
In a sun- lit dip
there sleeps a man
out of sight, away from view
he slumbers as he can
facing the sky, arms out wide
his rest goes on and on.
His eyes stare wild,
with hair dishevelled
and his tunic a darkish khaki brown.
The air is still
the flowers waver
no longer from the crack of fire
but from the breeze upon the hill.
He has come to rest
in the long grass.
He has come down to lay
in the now darkening day
here in this hallowed hollow;
and from the heart to the head,
as the khaki turns red
in the last beat of his youth,
the boy soldier is now forever dead.
And of the country
which he called his own
it will never be known,
if it lost or if it won,
since for him now
the war is all but done.
David Evans
