Your beauty as you spread across this landscape is breath taking
White skies meet white ground blurring the space between land and air
I am happy in this magical land of your own making
A magical wonderland of white coming it seems out of nowhere
Now without any worry, without any care, you are everywhere
We all went over the top a few hours ago
All shouting out our battle cry
To the dark grey uncaring sky
Not one of us ever asked why,
Not one of us ever stopped to say no
Oranges and yellows flashed bright ahead
From enemy machine guns left right and centre
Bullets coming towards us, a deadly metal storm
Bringing instant death or pain
Yet we all went forward, not one of us fled
Now I am lying here face down in the black mud
In some foreign field without any name
Grey skies above are now changing to white
Snow, uninterested from where I came
Falls white upon the soft black ground
A thin red line in the newly white ground
Slowly thickens, begins to flow all around
I’m so cold now, and I can barely see
But I recognise that thickening red line is me
And soon I will die in this black, red and white mud
Here I will die in some foreign field with no name
Land that cares nothing for the reasons that I came
It’s too late for me, but perhaps time for others
To stop, look at us all, begin to ask why
Before so many more like me have to die
"Snowfall" Copyright © Tom King 2022
White skies meet white ground blurring the space between land and air
I am happy in this magical land of your own making
A magical wonderland of white coming it seems out of nowhere
Now without any worry, without any care, you are everywhere
We all went over the top a few hours ago
All shouting out our battle cry
To the dark grey uncaring sky
Not one of us ever asked why,
Not one of us ever stopped to say no
Oranges and yellows flashed bright ahead
From enemy machine guns left right and centre
Bullets coming towards us, a deadly metal storm
Bringing instant death or pain
Yet we all went forward, not one of us fled
Now I am lying here face down in the black mud
In some foreign field without any name
Grey skies above are now changing to white
Snow, uninterested from where I came
Falls white upon the soft black ground
A thin red line in the newly white ground
Slowly thickens, begins to flow all around
I’m so cold now, and I can barely see
But I recognise that thickening red line is me
And soon I will die in this black, red and white mud
Here I will die in some foreign field with no name
Land that cares nothing for the reasons that I came
It’s too late for me, but perhaps time for others
To stop, look at us all, begin to ask why
Before so many more like me have to die
"Snowfall" Copyright © Tom King 2022
NOTE-Unquestioning obedience to orders and loyalty to a cause, set against the backdrop of landscape that only obeys its own rules of nature. This is the landscape that our combatant now finds himself in.
NOTE 2 After writing this, some weeks later I realised that our doomed soldier still had a little of his story to tell in "The Last Snowfall" and that the first verse of this new story needed to be added to this one to become the new first verse, tying both in together to one longer story, or if you want, two shorter stories.
NOTE 2 After writing this, some weeks later I realised that our doomed soldier still had a little of his story to tell in "The Last Snowfall" and that the first verse of this new story needed to be added to this one to become the new first verse, tying both in together to one longer story, or if you want, two shorter stories.