Nameless.
Headstones tell stories of breath succumbing
for Nature brings end to the unfit.
Setting the table with one place fewer sends
mourners for graveside visits.
Comfort is there in the quiet of granite with
names and dates of loved ones missed.
But World War 1 saw a coffinless era as boy
soldiers fell to muddy extinction.
Young bodies dropped nameless in scores
so graveyards at home had no link.
Plaques began to appear telling not of lives
lost but of what had been achieved.
Yet innocent blood indifferently spilled can
never be seen as victory.
Shell blasts and gun fire wrought by elite
terrorized youngsters into killing.
Shame on those who never brought back
a generation of stolen children.