Peace of Death

of DEATH.

His futile search for life never ends. No help by his side; death has claimed them as his own. A bird’s soft hum echoes through the air, He listens and finds comfort in the bird’s calling. Songs of a canary sent to its death.

A slow massacre, a strangling pain. The soldier joins in the gentle mellow whistling, He hears the tormented screams of a life draining away.

Down to the ground. The cry trembles in its wake. The canary’s song now whistled by the soldier. Through the eerily quiet land he now roams. His death awaits. This he has always known. Burning wood and flesh overwhelms him, As he struggles to grab hold of reality. He stops and sings For the canary, the enemies and himself.

The sweet composition takes over his thoughts. The mud thickens with each wavering step. Drowns his calves, shins and knees. He struggles Then stops.

He sings for his loved ones and those lost to the war. The music dances until it cannot anymore, soft notes turn to silence As the ground surrenders his frail slender body.

Still he sings inside for the peace of death, welcomes his eternal rest. A new dawn rises, chilling the body of death, sealing nature in it’s tomb.

A Hassard, Year 10