Standing on the cliff face

Above a moonlit sea

I waited for the dawn to break,

On Gallipoli.

And in the predawn stillness

I said a silent prayer,

For all the fallen soldiers

In wars fought everywhere.

Suddenly, a voice spoke

And addressed itself to me. 

“Cobber, can I stand with you

“Till the sun does kiss the sea”?

I turned to see a young man 

Twenty- three or Twenty-four.

Dressed in faded Khaki

Where no one stood before.

He said his name was Frederick,

But I should call him Fred.

“T’ was all the same anyway 

No matter what folks said.”

He said he came from Queensland,

From a place they called Paroo.

A land of sheep & cattle 

Where the wattle blossom grew.

His distinctive Aussie accent 

Came through strong & low.

Much the way my Grandad spoke

Many years ago.

He said “I’ve been away a while. 

A bit too long I fear”

“I suppose Aussie’s changed a lot 

Since I came over here.”

“Does the sandalwood still bloom?”  

“In the western spring?”

“And have you smelt the gidgee smell

That the coming storm doeth bring?”

“Do they still play two-up?

When the copper is away?

Oh how I miss an ice cold beer

At the closing of the day.”

We gather here each year”, he said

With a gesture of his hand

“Lest we forget” the reason’s

“We left our native land.”

“Will they still remember us?”

And standing in the darkness,

To the left and right of me

Stood rows, of Khaki clad soldiers

All staring out to sea.

From “Flanders Field” we come he said.

“Dunkirk & Normandy”

“From Tobruk and El Alamein.

To this Gallipoli.”

As he paused, a silent tear, 

Rolled down his sun tanned cheek,

Then he turned to me with glistening eyes 

And again began to speak.

“We fight for God & country.

Or so the posters say.

How the crowds cheered us,

The day we marched away.”

“But the posters have long faded.

The cheering crowds have too,

And somehow we’ve stopped aging

The way men usually do.”

“Will folks still remember us?”

“If we never do go home?”

“Or will we be forgotten,

Condemned to ever roam?’

As I struggled to reply,

A single bugle blew,

And the sky began to glow

With the dawning hue.

For a moment I stood lost in time

Nearly a century away,

With those men clad in Khaki

As the hounds of war did bay.

And when at last, I turned to speak

He’d disappeared from sight.

He & his fellow soldiers

Had faded with the night.

But in his place, a sea of poppies, 

Waved to meet the day.

And as I held one in my palm,

I heard the soldier say.

“Wear the poppy to remember us,”

With its petals, so blood red.”

“And take a message to the bush for me”

Say “G’day, from Paroo Fred.”

Peter Frazer   2008-03-06