Tag: soldiers

Six perspex soldiers
Sitting in Evensong
– Holy is the true light and passing wonderful –
Barely there,
Less substantial than shadows,
Just an outline, a thickening of the light
And a winking brightness on ear and shoulder
Where the young men would have sat
Who are gone.
Holy is the true light lending radiance
Making visible the gaps in other lives,
The absence, the grief.
These that endured in the heat of the conflict
Are now translated into light everlasting,
Held in eternity, their mud and blood
Transmuted into rejoicing,
Their might-have-been
Resolved into alleluias.
Yet here below
Where loss and grief are holy
Their absence shows in its true light
Of pain and love together,
Gone but not gone.

 

tRuth 2018

There but not there is a public art project to commemorate the 1918 Armistice.
https://www.therebutnotthere.org.uk

The words in italics are from the text of an anthem by William Harris.

 

image copyright tRuth http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/