Runcorn Remembrance

BITING wind sharp as shrapnel shards, cuts through the huddled crowd

Who gather neath the tall white cross, and November’s cold grey shroud

Where you who left to heed the call now stand in stone display

Your bodies lost in foreign field or ocean’s freezing spray

What hopes and dreams and loves were lost, as Atropos cut the thread

And all the futures that may have been, lost with the blood you shed

No more did you softly tread, our sandstone hill and trails

Or look across the Mersey bend, to the distant peaks of Wales

No more did you stroll along, the towpath’s twisting ways

Or gaze across the

Runcorn Gap, on hazy summer’s days

No more did you pass beside, the familiar factory stack

Or walk beneath Dukesfield arches, looming tall and black

Or sit high amongst the ruin, upon the castle’s ridge

Looking to the town that bore you, next to Ethelfleda’s bridge

For the insatiable demands of war, require blood sacrifice

And the lottery of shot and shell, chose you to pay the price

But indifferent time rolls on, and the generations fade away

Only frozen sepia moments remind, that you lived and loved and played

But fear not you silent shades, that forgotten you lie lost

For upon these streets where you once trod, we understand the cost

And call you back to home once more, to share our company

And accept the debt we owe to you, of honour and legacy

Do not despair you gave all for nought, rest softly now at ease

For your name lives on and will not die, like leaves upon the breeze

Upon the shrine red blossom grows, to reflect regret and thanks

And to soothe your sleep where ere you lie, amid the missing ranks

For this brief time your ghosts step forth, stirred by the solemn host

As upon the breeze haunting bugle call, laments your past last post

Like the setting sun at end of day, the proud standards dip and lie

Whilst silent tribute bemoans our loss, with only birdsong soliloquy

We grateful throng will leave you now, to your deserved sleep

But know this town does remember you, that the promise we did keep

Biting wind sharp as shrapnel shards, cuts through the dispersing crowd

Passing neath the adorned white cross under November’s cold grey shroud

The tribute’s done, the poppies laid, the ghosts return to stone

Leaving Cenotaph’s bronze honour guard standing vigil all alone.