Blood of my blood, living here still,
Matilda comes waltzing up Constitution Hill.
Cold the morning, grey the sky,
Sun muffled up in cloud
Missing.
We stand in rows
Circling the world.
Dead men around us,
Patiently wait
For the word.
Faces are fading
Back into photos
Seen as a child.
Well known strangers
Now cluster in.
This reading of names,
year after year, Memorial Wall
This seeking some thing
Hyde Park Corner, London
Began long ago.
Why are we here?
Who was alive
When the first battle started.
Why shuffle and sigh
When banners unfurl?
Do we remember,
To show how we care
Just like to wave,
Want to be noticed.
Have guilt assuaged?
Or perhaps, we are shrouds
Drawn out by hands
From the grave.
Young men are boating
Strolling the Strand.
Nearby they pass
Under this arch
Bright eyes delighting.
And then?
Into death went soul
Body left behind
Somewhere in the mud,
Photo Anne took of her father at
Damp the air, chilled the bone
Villers-Bretonneaux
Trees drift from fog,
Military Cemetery, France,
Limbs cut.
September, 1967
A march of memories
Gathers about me.
Carried by destruction
Here, to this place
Where MY youth was tested.
Here where I knew
Love not a thing desired
Contained in features, flesh,
But Spirit using mind,
Regardless of corruption.
A whirl of smoke, beyond the crowd,
Scapegoated,
Silently searching
Dissolves upwards.
Yet
Essence of Man's glory,
Being through another
Graced me.
All those young men dying,
Did they find
There,
In war
Light beside them.
A Presence, radiating Close up of Memorial Wall, in which
Energetic calm are
carved names of some of the
Ingathered to itself places where Australians fought, and
Within and yet apart the towns
from which they came.
From all the slaughter.
Did friend and foe,
Share in despair
Holiness of Being.
Greet the Son
With bloodied cloak.
The last leaf falls, fingers curl,
Wandering free
A sketch of skeletons
My father walked round here
Stood there,
Over there,
Looking up at gunners
One of the 'fellowship'.
Old man
Remembering
His youth amongst the guns.
He moves towards a space
Curved into stone.
There now he reads, carefully,
Where he fought
And his best mates fell.
My life
Formed by war, two wars,
Has become
Scenes
Snapped today
.
The film runs back
And forward.
Finite death
Opens out to Love
Infinite and always.
White the gull, wings outstretched.
Earth is crossed
In sting of innocence.
For a while
I am
Where my nation is.
Dual life contained
Crafted out by granite.
A little more of London
Is claimed now by its own
To be its own.
Anthem echoes anthem
In united prayer.
A-wallow in matter, fashioned to kill,
Might an age wait,
Wait for miracles.
Is this the purpose?
Can hope come from dead men
Who, caring to be human
Gave Love in spite of Satan
Clawing at creation.
Far away youth pauses,
Perhaps its sacrifice
Will not be in vain.
All may yet understand
God's breath is everywhere.
Red the petal, black the core
Generations pass
Through a wreath of flowers.
Blood of my blood, living here still
Matilda comes waltzing up Constitution Hill
Circles and stops. A figure sits down
Content in the flame of a People's Will
To rest for awhile on hallowed ground
© Anne McCosker 2003.
Photographs © Anne McCosker
Posted on web 30th October 2005, in celebration of the
ringing of the
Dresden Frauenkirche bells for the first time since their
destruction in 1945
DRESDEN
Though night the dead leaves fall
One upon one,
Cobbles have become a bloody coloured carpet
Statues stand aloof
Hollow eyed,
Black flacks of fury cut into each heart.
A thousand candles etch
Face after face,
The 'balcony of Europe' blazes with elegance.
Overhead searchlights
Sweep westward,
Awful fingers flick remembrance from the pall.
Beams circle, pause, pass on
Gargoyles watch,
The sky is empty - now.
Darkness though lets grief
Choke throats,
Centuries have melted down to nothingness.
A sound above jerks features up
Red wine spurts,
Heads twist to sight from alleyway and attic.
Tongues flare the furnace
Satanic sanity,
Makes all men mad.
Time destroys itself
Spaced pain
Can understand the grave
As round the Frauenkirche
Flesh terrified,
Turns into soul.
With day the sun will give
Reflection,
Beauty burnt to ashes a-quiver in the light.
The Frauenkirche is rising,
Art remains,
Dancers play with fire about the palaces
And canna flames along the Elbe,
Lantana flowers,
Image of mine, my own home town.
There I heard an angry cry
My mother's,
For the 'enemy' - in Dresden.
I am a stranger here
In peace, apart,
The people are beyond me,
Yet a first memory
My mother horrified,
Gives her to me - in Dresden.
©
Anne McCosker 2004.
Frauenkirche, 2004
Dresden with
Frauenkirche
from the Elbe, 2004
Photographs © Martin Craxton 2005, posted with his permission