The Day My Family Came ~ A Poem by Michael Edwards

  I half awoke to a strange new calm

 And a sleep that would not clear

 For this was the sleep to cure all harm

 And which freezes all from fear.

Shot had come from left and right

 With shrapnel, shell and flame

 And turned my sunlit days to night

 Where now none would call my name.

Years passed me by as I waited,

 Missed the generations yet to come,

 Sadly knew I would not be fated

 To be a father, hold a son.

I heard again the sounds of war

 When twenty years of sleep had gone,

 For five long years, maybe more,

 Till peace once more at last had come.

More years passed, new voices came,

 The stones and trenches to explore,

 But no-one ever called my name

 So I wished and waited ever more.

Each time I thought, perhaps, perhaps,

 Perhaps this time they must call me,

 But they only called for other chaps,

 No-one ever called to set me free.

Through years of lonely vigil kept,

 To look for me they never came,

 None ever searched or even wept,

 Nobody stayed to speak my name.

Until that summer day I heard

 Some voices soft and strained with tears,

 Then I knew that they had come

 To roll away those wasted years.

Their hearts felt out to hold me,

 Made me whole like other men,

 But they had come just me to see,

 Drawing me back home with them.

Now I am at peace and free to roam

 Where 'ere my family speak my name,

 That day my soul was called back home

 For on that day my family came.