Did you wake that day
to a stronger foreboding,
a sense of preordained
distance closing
between you and the thing
that had stalked you
to Africa, then back
from Tobruk?
Did you guess the marksman
now had a face,
and would recognise yours,
though you'd never detect him,
camouflaged by alien jungle,
waiting to expedite your fate?
I was offered a chance
to visit your grave,
touch the dust
that once held
your shape;
I wondered what I would say:
if you knew
that she'd survive you
by many decades,
honouring you to the end,
never letting
the banner she carried
fade to quotidian,
never allowing your name
to lapse in the chasm
of forgetfulness.
Remembrance -
unassailable lien
the wistful dead
bequeath to the living -
escapes from the fragile
vial of flesh
as a volatile,
miraculous presence.
The imprimatur of her essence
intertwined
with her memory of you
is inextricably linked
with my memory of her.
*
i.m. Godfrey Charles St. Clair Hadkins
29.06.1913 - 3.09.1942:
killed in action, Battle of Milne Bay,
New Guinea