Category: Writers Block
And here i stand in this castle.
wich is older than me,
indeed older than my nation.
With it's cannons, it's high stone walls and a sword which stands taller than i.
A sword which faught in battles long before i was born.
A sword that spilt blood before men claiming superiority ever set foot on the shores of my land.
And yet they never built wonders such as this.
Three thousand years! so they believe, so they tell me.
three thousand years a fortress has been set upon this hill.
This very room, with it's high ceiling and it's documents of war, after war, after war...
And i am one of maybe 100 here.
Lamenting the loss of men long dead, men not remembered in legend as many of those who lived in these walls.
Yet they are remembered.
So far away from home on this day of all days, i miss it.
it's silly.
Yet here i stand in this castle.
listening to the hymns played by the band...off in the distance a piper tunes.
It is foreign, yet so so beautiful.
I sit now, listening to prayer, poem and 4 anthums.
Australia, New Zealand, turkey and Brittain.
They are all represented.
A bugler calls up the spirits of those long gone to us,
those men who faught with sword, pike, musket and morter machine gun and shell.
They are all listening,...i can feel it.
i feel it all around me, it's in the wind.
and now the silence...
the room is still, still as the trenches after the soldiers have fled and the graves dug.
And the wind carries them.
Is this where once one of my ansestors trod?
Do i belong here in any way?
the wind howels round corners and above our heads.
and my tears fall.
For what reason? I'm unsure.
they come to rest upon the stone aged by the centuries.
And they are all i leave behind.
and here i stand in this castle.
older than my nation,
but no less a part of me now.
Stunning moving and very atmospheric.Brava!
Scots,wha hae wi Wallace bled Scot's,wham Bruce has aften led welcome to your gory bed, or to victorie. Now's the day and now's the hour; see the front o battle lour; see approach proud Edward's power chains ands slaverie!. Wha will be a traitor's knave? Wha can fill a coward's grave? wha s'base as be a slave? Let him turn an flee!Wha for Scotland's King and lawfreedom's sword will strongly draw free-man stand,or free-man fa? let him follow me! By oppressions woes and pains! by your sons in servile chains we will draw our dearest veins but they shall be free! Lay the proud usurpers low! Tyrants fa in every foe ! Liberty's in every blow let us do, or die!
You say, "and my tears fall. For what reason? I'm unsure. they come to rest upon the stone aged by the centuries. And they are all i leave behind." Maybe that's all that's required. If there were no rememberers, there would be no remembered.
the tradition of anzac day, which this poem is based upon, is a dieing one here in australia. there's noone left alive who faught in the battle of galipole.
i recall being really sad about the fact i was away from home for anzac day because i always attend a service.
then i found out about the one in edinburgh castle.
while it was small, somehow it was what i wanted.