Remembrance Day

Yesterday was Remembrance Day and if I wasn't having internet troubles I would have posted this then.  This is a time when all Australians reflect on the sacrifices we as a country have made and a time to remember all those who fought for us and our freedom.  What better way than to do it with a bit of multi-cultural poetry.  One of my life-long favourite poets Dimitris Tsaloumas captured me over 10 years ago with his poem Rhapsody of Old Men.  I don't have a copy of it with me and I can't remember the whole poem so here is another Tsaloumas poem for your reading pleasure...


To The Reader II

If when you walk through the mist you notice birds
- ablaze like pomegranates
in the window and on the bearded roof of winter,
- if sometimes the dark tunnels
let you out onto the balconies of the Amazon
- to see without fear flesh-eating leaves
swallowing alive the straying beams of the sun,
- and if your rights are trampled
or for your country’s sake you’re led away
- to gaol and see how blood sets fire
to the wilderness in the people’s eyes,
- then know that you’re indebted to me, that if you doff
the music I clothed you in, the shudder will crack you,
- the mists will flood you, and you’ll perish.

Dimitris Tsaloumas

Lest We Forget.

(photo by Benjamin Pfeiffer from www.1adventure.com)