Reunion, Remembrance, 2000

Her voice was a motor of cigarettes, coffee and draft,

kind, and with all the weary authority of death.

Her laugh was an explosion of bawdy glee,

gusting across an ash tray Armageddon,

smudging the beer rings recording the rounds

on ghost-bleached Formica at the Legion hall.

She said good bye to her first soldier sixty years ago.

Youth’s urgent appointment with sudden mortality

flooding the night with a rush of significance

more vivid than flag, blood or winter trumpet.

The smoke, dust and tears have mostly settled now,

time’s callous camouflage for a fading generation

blown aside, but briefly, on a chill November day,

as young, remembered dead and old, forgotten dying,

hold boisterous reunion in her exuberant laughter.

                                                — David Cadogan