VE Day 8 May 2020
Within a lifetime
To dance each day
To live my way
To laugh and smile
To cry a while
To speak my piece
To give in to anger
To shout, and love,
To live a dream …
I thank you, each and every one,
You lay down your life
When you took up that gun.
To go away, to live in strife,
To wake each day and never know
If this is the one when the angels show.
Your lives, for some, weren’t so long.
Your faith was tested. In God? In man?
Yet there you stood, amongst the throng,
Did what you could as madness began.
A moment stretched, across the void.
Too many lost, too many destroyed.
So I dance each day
So I live my way
So I laugh and smile
So I cry a while
So I speak my piece
So I give in to anger
So I shout, and love,
So I live a dream.
Yet every year, for a moment, I stop.
To stand deep in thought, eyes I drop.
Tears run freely as I recall
Those who once stood so very tall.
I remember a field, of flowers red
To honour those whose lives were shed.
No matter where, no matter when,
No matter who, no matter how –
I will remember, time and again,
To your bravery, I forever bow.
I’d like to say I’d do the same –
In time of need, would I take aim?