An oldie

Hello again!
The year has started slowly here, on the poetic front. Looking back on all my recent writings, I've realized that I hadn't written anything at all in English recently!!! Even the manuscript I was so busily working on throughout 2008 has been relegated to the back burner. Aw, well... Chalk it up to winter tiredness... Speaking of which, right now I'm absolutely croaky, having just suffered a baaaad case of laryngitis!!! My voice is so badly gone I've had to take time off. As some giggling friend pointed out: how can a teacher teach without a voice? Chucks! And I'd always thought it was just my wondrous lessons, insightful texts and riveting exercises that made the class thrive! And all this time it was my voice, lulling them! Darn!
Anyhow, this si just a short hello with a promise to get back into the swing of things and present you some time soon with new work...
In the meantime, however, here's an oldie I unearthed recently while clearing up the mess otherwise known as my office (those who have been visitors to this peaceful, loving... and messy abode will understand fully). It was written a million years ago, while I was still in high school in Toronto, after we'd talked of war in general and the Vietnam war in particular with our history teacher (Mr Gerard Gaston Boulay, a.k.a. God to his pupils) and seen various war documents :

Eulogy to a reluctant soldier

He was a young man in khaki green.
His name? Graham, Henry Dean.
Yet without his dogtag number,
Memories of him would vanish in slumber.
He went to fight. He didn't want to;
Just sighed and said "War's nothing new".
In the field in which he fought
By loss of lives he was distraught.
He was a boy of kindly nature,
For his young age quite mature.
He used to say "War? Dear, you jest,
For we all know that Peace is best!"
It was a Sunday during Lent
When to war my friend was sent;
He who'd once said "Peace rates a ten!"
Had to go kill other men.
His mother cries, I hear her weep;
But Henry's life is fast asleep.
Born in '51, a child of the Flower
Power,
He lived until sixty-nine
And then trod on a landmine.
He was the average boy-next-door,
One who played baseball, hated war,
One for whom bombs and war crimes
Were on feature in The Times.
He read about war and he cried,
Was sent to fight... and then he died.

April 15th 1986
Toronto
© Rebecca Bourgeois

Frankly, I think it hasn't aged too badly...
To this day, I remain an idealist, hating any form of violence, and admire people who rise against it, especially if they manage to do so without violence on their own part!.
Have a nice time!