Your old cobbers
used to come and visit
sharing POW stories
of camp radios and forced marches
You left New Zealand in your prime
the enthusiasm of youth
and memories of bicycle trips
over the Canterbury Plains.
Never sharing the pain of Crete
friends lost in the beat of battle
captive in your memory
as strong as the barbed wire that encircled you
for four long years
You shielded us, your children
from the realities of war
and the horrors that you saw
My father returned a man
with hearing lost from bombs on Crete
clutching still a battered violin
and thoughts that would not find him
PEACE
Roger Smith
October 2019
