Lower Your Guard Poem by Linda Hepner

Lower Your Guard

The old guard marched out and we slip home without them
Tramping beside us through the narrow streets,
Our footsteps clocking the cobbles and the dark alleys
Gleaming with cats' eyes, murmuring with spying threats;
Unprotected we cling together, our hands clammy.
Tomorrow if we live we shall return, first you then I
And anxiously survey the plaza for the new guard. Will it be
Swelled by the eager youth we sacrifice
To stand by us in years of revolution, civil strife,
Eager recruits who still believe, until the sharp knife
In the back relieves them of their faith…. Then every day
New faces, ready to die for us, their mothers, fathers,
We who taught them this was worth dying for, we their old
And terrified elders, sneaking between echoing walls
And shuttered windows.
One day we shall need no guard. The cry will be:
Lower your guard, citizens! Today you have no need
For us, you stand alone!
Then we shall rejoice, but one day later
The old refrain: there is danger abroad, brothers,
Let us find some sacrificial sons to guide us,
We who have entered, made and own this deadly city!

29th March 2005