Anzac-ed out 2015

Willy Bach

‘Anzac-ed out 2015’, Honest History, 5 May 2015

As we know….

They shall grow not old,

Lives cut short

Terminated

Denied parenthood

Pleasure, creativity

Reflection

Grandchildren

as we that are left grow old:

Lamely, sullenly

Prematurely

Age shall not weary them,

As they tirelessly

Struggle

To keep their minds

Together

nor the years condemn….

The leaders who

Recklessly sent so many

To their deaths

At the going down of the sun

As it always does

and in the morning

We will still

Avoid asking why

We will remember them.

We said

As we ignored

Their problems

The cries of their loved ones

Partners and children

We only want

The official narrative

To prevail

The people who did

What they were told

Even secret, awful acts

Abandoned

Of no more use

Thanked only

With sanctimonious courtesies

For perpetual war.

 

(Left) ANZAC Union Jack circa 1916, St John’s Anglican Cathedral, Ann Street, Brisbane – tells you whose war it was, not Australia’s.

(Right) A wreath of white poppies on Brisbane’s Cenotaph, placed by opponents of war celebration as a reminder of the violent deaths of thousands of Aboriginal people who defended their land in the Bush Wars. (photos: Willy Bach)

Willy Bach © 2015

Footnote: 26 April 2015, after an Evensong at St John’s Cathedral, Brisbane. Recasting the words of the famous excerpt from Robert Laurence Binyon’s poem, ‘For the Fallen‘, written in mid September 1914, a few weeks after the outbreak of the First World War.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Willy Bach is a postgraduate research student, School of History, University of Queensland.