Award-winning poet and Sutherland Shire Councillor Barry Collier reflects on Anzac Day

Let us also remember

those in factories and on farms

backing our men and our women in arms:

Aussies going without, always knowing within

they must each give their all in this War we must win.

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Let us also remember

all the women who’d waited  so long

for their men to come home after the Somme;

with love in each letter, always hoping  for more-

and praying that telegram won’t arrive at their door.

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Let us also remember

all the children- each lass and each lad-

who grew up without ever knowing their dad

but for a name on a grave in some country distant

and a photograph in uniform on the day he enlisted.

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Let us also remember

all the nurses who cared for our men

brought in from the front time and again,

the Salvos and Chaplains up there on the line

giving comfort to so many for the very last time.

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Let us also remember

those who returned, but never quite right,

reliving their fears in the depths of each night,

yet never able to tell what they’d seen while away

of the horrors that haunt them in the cold light of day.

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So while we remember all those who fell

on ANZAC, in Flanders, or at Fromelles,

so let us never dismiss from our mind

all those at home and those left behind.

                                                  © Barry Collier, 2018 

The poem appeared initially in the newsletter of St Catherine Laboure Catholic Church, Gymea, newsletter, where an Anzac Day Mass will be celebrated.