Letter's Home (A Soldier's Lament) Poem by Norman E Dale

Just a note to say farewell,
I won't be coming home this time.
For my blood lies spilled upon the
sand of foreign clime, so far away amid
the grime of war, perhaps remembered
when November tolls the bell.
For home, I can no longer call my own, .
nor wear the poppies that are blown, for
those who gave their all, a long, long
time ago.
Who fell in Flanders fields,
or Normandie, at Arnhem, or some
scene of battle fought at places like
Goose Green, and lie in silence still,
both friend and foe.

I had no wish to lay beneath the desert sand,
but in the village, where my generations
planned and toiled their way through humble
lives, until their hourglass ran through.
Yet I have joined the ranks who fell,
when far from those we love, to dwell until
the world shall keep it's date with time,
and I with you.

So look not for my coming back,
nor ask of reason or of rhyme, why I must
lay here in my prime, so far from home,
beneath a simple plaque.
It is when duty calls and good men die,
for brothers who hold honour high,
that I gladly give my all and lie beneath
these sun bleached sand dunes
of Iraq.