Remembering

He was sitting on a park-bench
Neath a grey November sky
Watching all the children
With a sad look in his eye
I walked over to him
Asked him ‘how are you today’
His eyes turned misty, tear-dimmed
As I heard him softly say

I’m thinking of a guy named Jim
And seeing why he died
For little children on the swings
Or coming down the slide
Some days I sit and ponder
Our freedom’s awful cost
But then again, I wonder
How would life be if we’d lost

I think of all the daddies
The brothers and the sons
Lying in forgotten fields
Before the war was won
But now I see the boy, the girl
The husband and the wife
Living here in freedom’s world
Bought with a soldier’s life

I’m sitting on this park-bench
So I will not forget
My fallen friends, the heroes
Counted with the dead
I sit here to remember
The blood-shed and the pain
I sit here to remember
That they did not die in vain

All Rights Reserved
Janet Martin