Soldiers

Prompt:
a line from a poem.
I used
Dreamers by Siegfried Sassoon

Soldiers  

Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land,

where poppies grow

and birds hide, like the bodies in the sand,

they are the men, the boys,

from here and countries far away,

they scream and yell in the face of death,

or silently cry or pray.

They are the ones 

that march through streets,

with bands and waving flags

they are the statues

long forgotten in the green,

with mold, dirt and almost hidden cracks.

Soldiers are heroes, so they say,

but they are brothers,

and the neighbours sons,

they fight for future not only of the land,

but of their own life too.

With grace, in freedom,

here I smile, towards the photo of a friend,

and take the rose, dark red, a tear,

when for the grave I bend,

at death's grey land.

©Syl2020