The Chieften

My aanti-war poem from the book of poems A Golden Age and Other Poems

The Chieften

 Blue flowers, dark stone, on some wind swept moor
As I look, the wind carries the sound of sadness. 
The stones fade, in their place a grave
Gaping dark in the early morning light.
Lights of torches approach up the hill
Lines of people, men and women, all silent.
Around the grave men in chain mail standing
Sword points in ground, hands clasped on hilts 
Heads bowed low.

Four men carry a body on a stretcher

Leather stretched between two spears.

A long forgotten chieftain, golden circlet on head

Golden cloaked, sword grasped in hands

They lay the body in the grave to silence

Except the whine of the wind in the gorse.

Dark stones are piled one on another, higher and higher.

When they are finished, a woman steps forward,

Kneels and plants some blue flowers among the stones.

The men in chain mail lift their swords above their heads 

In salute to their departed chief, turn and march away

To some other war.

Blue flowers bloom each year, the dark stones washed clean 

By the falling rain.

Eddie Gubbins