Lest We Forget

Their footsteps are hollow
As their ghost walks the hall
And their mothers listen
Until summer is now fall

Their helmets put aside
No more reason to fear
They can stand tall in the barracks
And hold close those dear

Their guns on the floor
Spent and empty from war
Their bullet wounds bleeding
Yet their never back for more

Their ghosts in the graveyard
Walking along the straight graves
The unmarked tombstones
The lives they gave

Their brothers in arms
Moving in teams
With their movement choregraphed
Bind by no seams

Their empty eyes streaming
With tears of remembrance
And till this day
We give them our forgiveness

Silence in the halls for now
With their ghost fading in memories
After all this time
These ANZAC's are just ghost stories

"They shall not grow 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

Lest we forget."

[ANZAC poem told to many Australian generations to remember the landing of Australian and New Zealand Army Corps in Gallipoli on April 25th, 1915]