Written for VE day - Victory in Europe Day - 2025 and this accounts for its spring setting. However, as it has the spirit of remembrance throughout, it has featured in Remembrance-themed shop window displays in my town over Remembrance weekend 2025.
Tin Soldier
A country lane carpeted with the confetti
Cascading from the canopies
Of crab apple and cherry blossom trees
Shaken by a gentle spring breeze
Is perfect for an afternoon stroll
Far from the madding crowd
The bunting, the flags
The pubs and street parties loud
Instead a willow weeping
Into a babbling brook
Tinkering over pebbles and stones
Soothing to the soul and bones
Through a gate
The footpath leads
Into a copse
Lined with clumps
And clots
Of forget-me-nots
And dandelion clocks
Half blown away
Scattered and spinned
In the wind's sway
Along with blossom dust
That lingers along the way
Carried on the breeze
And to breathe in heavily the
Heavenly scent from
Hawthorn trees that
Hangs in the air
British bluebell battle
To hold their ground -
Underground, overground
Whilst bluebell invaders
Currently abound
A herd of cattle
Behind a barb wire fence graze
Above a buttercup haze
Inside a sun-lit blaze
Peaceful, placid and content
Until their lives are shortly spent
And to the left, are graves
Each stone engraved
With a citizen's name
A date, a few words raved
Cut flowers are laid and displayed
Cut with a blade
Wounded, withering, wilting
Becoming frayed
A pile of dead wood
Buzzes alive with insect life
And a buzzard soars the skies
With searing haunting cries
Back on the ground
Amidst the barricading bramble
Rambling scrambling strangling ivy
And nettles rapidly expanding in size
Marching on the rise
A silhouette
A figure in black
A stature
A sculpture
A tin soldier
Stationed by the track
We stop for a moment
In remembrance of the past
And through white bells
And cow parsley we pass
