D Day

D day

Has come to mean so many things:

The day the pay cheque arrives

The day a momentous ( or not so momentous) 

decision must be made

The final cut off

The term has featured in films,

been immortalised in song

and become the subject of poetry 

But for many in our world today

D day can only speak of one thing

Hurtling back through time

70 years ago today

A scene of

Watery, bloody carnage

The sacrifice of tens of thousands of lives

in a so called Just War

Beaches strewn with casualties

Cleaned up today

Tidied away into neat war graves

and memorials

The beginning of the end 

that took a long time to play out

and cost so much more

in its execution.

And so, 70 years on

we pause to remember

unimaginable scenes

unforgettable courage

and the incredible price of freedom.

And, should our remembering

cause us to resolve

to seek paths to peace

that are creative

and life giving

vested in honouring diversity

and in celebrating cultures

Then will our remembrance

be the memorial

that those veterans deserve

and that our world demands.