Farewell 2009- welcome 2010?

Sun, rain, toe-numbing snow

Days, months, years ebb and flow

Again, again they line the cortege route.

Silence, honour, lowers, heart-felt tears

Flag-draped coffins slowly passing by-

Husband, father, brother, lover and friend

Dead within their prime, before their time

Dead with youthful hope and expectation incomplete.

Brave, steadfast, loyal comrades served-

Their teenage dream, their selfless aspiration

Far beyond a nation's call to arms.

Heat, sand, a barren no-man's land

Inch by inch before the point of no return

They edged a fractious, disconnected world away

From self-annihilation.

Mary Hale