Showing posts with label Remembrance Day Poem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Remembrance Day Poem. Show all posts

Sunday, November 11, 2018

To Remember Enough




To remember enough
To love God first
And then our fellowman
To remember enough
To make a difference
In any way we can
To remember enough
To not take for granted
This Homeland where we live
And never take more for ourselves
Than we are willing to give

© Janet Martin



Friday, November 11, 2016

Remembering...



 It is Remembrance Day in Canada,
Veteran's Day in the USA

(Today we say our thank-yous
...each day may we live our Thank-yous)



Sometimes I forget
… I butter bread
And fill my head
With dreams and such
While offspring of
A soldier’s love
Makes uncommon,
Life’s common touch

…how those who fell
Loved, oh so well
The life of morrow’s
Girl and boy
And how the cost
Of what they lost
Pays for the freedom
We enjoy

*** 



Sometimes I forget
… I butter bread
And fill my head
With dreams and such
While offspring of
A Saviour’s love
Makes uncommon,
Life’s common touch

His blood-drops fell
To save from hell
The soul whose life
Will never cease
He bore the price
Of sacrifice
To pay for freedom
We call Peace

© Janet Martin


Easy Service by Edgar A. Guest

When an empty sleeve or a sightless eye
Or a legless form I see,
I breathe my thanks to my God on High
For His watchful care o'er me.
And I say to myself, as the cripple goes
Half stumbling on his way:
I may brag and boast, but that brother knows
Why the old flag floats to-day.

I think as I sit in my cozy den
Puffing one of my many pipes
That I've served with all of my fellow men
The glorious Stars and Stripes.
Then I see a troop in the faded blue
And a few in the dusty gray,
And I have to laugh at the deeds I do
For the flag that floats to-day.

I see men tangled in pointed wire,
The sport of the blazing sun,
Mangled and maimed by a leaden fire
As the tides of battle run,
And I fancy I hear their piteous calls
For merciful death, and then
The cannons cease and the darkness falls,
And those fluttering things are men.

Out there in the night they beg for death,
Yet the Reaper spurns their cries,
And it seems his jest to leave them breath
For their pitiful pleas and sighs.
And I am here in my cosy room
In touch with the joys of life,
I am miles away from the fields of doom
And the gory scenes of strife.

I never have vainly called for aid,
Nor suffered real pangs of thirst,
I have marched with life in its best parade
And never have seen its worst.
In the flowers of ease I have ever basked,
And I think as the Flag I see
How much of service from some it's asked,
How little of toil from me.



Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Because We Should Never Forget





To those who gave their all,
Or took the risk, 
To those who still do,
So we can go to work
And home
To church,
To school,
With shoes.
So we can travel 
Or marvel
As we watch the day unravel
In a garden,
On a hilltop,
Or from picnics in the park
So we can sit with kin a bit
Beneath the star-frothed dark
Or stroll through
Supermarkets
With shopping baskets
So we can cook,
Bake,
And linger
With loved ones
After dinner
Over tea and cake
So we can stop
At Hospitals,
Greenhouses,
The mechanic,
Coffee-shops,
Or grandma’s house
Without
So much
As a second thought

Thank-you

© Janet Martin

Sunday, November 11, 2012

A Veteran's Thoughts from a Park Bench





Poetics Aside Prompt; Write A Veteran's Thoughts

The streets team with young men now, and dreams
But it was not so back when
The draft came to town and stole from
Mothers and lovers
All the young men

Now the park is filled with laughter
Of care free girl and boy
While in countless 'Flanders Fields'
Lies the price tag
Of freedom’s joy

He sits alone on the park bench
Thinking of 'him'
With tears in his eyes 
He remembers
His buddy, Jim

Jim will never see
The fruit of his sacrifice
And he weeps because so many
Seem ignorant
Of freedom’s price

© Janet Martin

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Remembering...


He sits on a park-bench, watching the children
Like colored balloons bobbing over the grass
He catches my eye so I sit down beside him
Suddenly hesitant of what I should ask
So I ask him formally, ‘how are you today?’
And I lean toward him as I hear him say,

“I’m thinking today of my buddy named Jim
And reminding myself again why he died
He died for that little girl there on the swing
And the curly-haired lad coming down the slide
Some days I sit and I can’t help but ponder
The heart-breaking price-tag of freedom; the pain,
But then, as I sit here watching the children
I know that my buddies did not die in vain
I come here to pray for the sons and the daughters
That somehow it seems we easily forget
Leaving their homes and their families; their comforts
Because freedom’s battle is not over yet”

Janet Martin

Remembering...


He sits on a park-bench, watching the children
Like colored balloons bobbing over the grass
He catches my eye so I sit down beside him
Suddenly hesitant of what I should ask
So I ask him formally, ‘how are you today?’
And I lean toward him as I hear him say,


“I’m thinking today of my buddy named Jim
And reminding myself again why he died
He died for that little girl there on the swing
And the curly-haired lad coming down the slide
Some days I sit and I can’t help but ponder
The heart-breaking price-tag of freedom; the pain,
But then, as I sit here watching the children

I know that my buddies did not die in vain

I come here to pray for the sons and the daughters

That somehow it seems we easily forget

Leaving their homes and their families; their comforts

Because freedom’s battle is not over yet”


Janet Martin

Monday, November 22, 2010

Somebody's Love.....


He loved his mom’s apple strudel
His eyes were kind and blue
He loved a girl named Caroline
And oh, she loved him too
They were going to be married
As soon as the war was done
And maybe if they were lucky
Someday they would have a son……….

He always loved to play football
Was the high school quarter-back
He didn’t play for a medal
He just played for the love of it
And oh, how he loved his dog, Rover
Man’s best friend was his
Now Rover whimpers every night
And wonders where he is………

He was a generous fellow
He walked the second mile
When everybody else said no
He did it with a smile
But nobody knows his attributes
As he lies in the bloody snow
They’ve come to gather the fallen dead
…..here lies another John Doe

Beneath each cross in Flanders’ Field
Beneath the sound of a gun
Beneath the weapon or the shield
Is somebody's dear son
Beneath the watchful eye above
The dying fallen lie
Oh, pray for they are somebody’s love
…….for you and yours they die

Janet~
'son' is a generic term here.......
We pray for all the sons and daughters!

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Remember............


Remember; the one who fought for you
Remember; countless lives lost
Remember every soldier who
Paid for freedom’s cost
Remember those who fight today
Preserving what was won
Oh, remember when you pray
Each daughter or each son……….

Remember; freedom is never free
It comes at a great price
If there is freedom there must be
Incredible sacrifice
Remember then to cherish
The freedom of this land
For many more will perish
To preserve our freedom grand

Janet~