He went back ever year
Back to France
To visit graves of lads
Who never stood a chance
Mown down on that foreign shore
There they lie forever more
Names on stones worthy of our glance
A pal of his died in his arms
Father of a three-month baby girl
All his years of searching
Sixty years on he finds
The plot where his old pal
Laid down to rest
Every year he made that journey back
A journey of remembrance to his pals
Important to remember those who fell in France
Honour those who never got the chance
My father never journeyed back like that
He’d seen too much in Africa
Normandy and that
He wouldn’t even visit local graves
He sat outside the cemetery
The day we went to see
His parents’ final resting place
That Sunday before tea
It puzzled me at first
But now I know
He had no need to trigger memories
Or re-visit long ago
Let them lie in peace
Let me get on with living
Just pray for sense
And pray that wars may cease
Brian Fahy
26 April 2022
+ Harry Billinge, a D-Day soldier, who landed on Gold Beach on 6th June 1944, is buried today, aged 96. He returned to France to visit the war graves every year. My father never wanted to know about cemeteries. We are all different.
Erris Poetry 