Shropshire Hills

Stokesay

The hourly bus to Craven Arms

Winds smoothly through the lanes

From Shrewsbury to Ludlow Town

And then winds back again.

So off to Stokesay down the road

Along with Saga coaches

For sandwiches and camomile

Before the rain approaches.

But the gods all smile today

The sun shines for our trip

With audiophones pressed to our ears

We roam the halls and grip

The medieval hand-rail

Up to the second storey

Where fireplace and panelling

Give up their latent glory

Before we meet up in the Court

To hear an actor tell

Of Agincourt and death in war

Wow - doesn't he do well!

I didn't know how close we came

To losing to the French

Or how the dysentery came near

To killing, in its stench,

The flower of English warriors

The bowmen and the mighty

Who worked a miracle before

Returning home to Blighty.

For those few moments

I was off into another time

Of Shakespear and heroism

Of massacre and grime,

Where real pain and real death

Confronted real men

Who bled and died without a sense

Of why - or where or when.

For us it's history, for them

A matter of life and death

And in the chyrchyard just outside

A statue stands abreast

The many graves of local folk

Naming the few who were

Parish born and parish lost

Forever, through two wars

But more than this, for once it names

The men who did return

Whose quiet guilt and worried lives

Have carried in their turn

A truth we seldom need to face

When we talk of war

For more come back disabled

Than ever die before

The onslaught of the generals

The cluster bombs and mines;

And while we mourne the coffins

To the inured we seem blind.

So just for once at Stokesay

We can give thanks for those

Who fought and won but lived on

In peaceful times and chose

To keep their memories to themselves

Happy in the knowledge

That we were free to live and work

And send our kids to College

Rather than see them massacred

Upon some foreign field

For someone else's mad idea

Of profit or of yield.

Brian Hick 2009

©copyright Sally Hick 6.8.22