Passchendaele 12/10/1917
In the cold of the morning, whistles blew.
With tiredness in their bones,
the dead men rose,
Their legs were heavy, but fire flamed within.
On the mud filled fields they fell,
Men from the hill country,
seeking only a spur.
On that darkest of days for the young country,
The morning sun shone on their blood-red bodies,
cut down before they reached their bloom.
Those brave boys from Otago,
entangled on the wire barbed,
Caught in arcs of fire, they answered the angel's call.
On those Belgian fields their bodies still lie,
Their souls, unbowed, reposed
in God's embrace.
For days the wounded lay, in frigid lakes of blood and bone,
endless suffering, in that place of tortured dreams.
Those who survived, forever changed,
Never to forget the horror
etched into their eyes.
Across farmhouses in New Zealand desperate mothers wept.
Tales of glory were told, shiny metal displayed.
That day with no victory, brought only death and sorrow,
On those sombre fields,
so far away.