NOT FORGOTTEN

I stare into his cruel eyes and it seems my death will come by that with which I killed,

The lingering memory of freedom ever with me all these years, unlocked by the call of my friend, who circles over head in the dying clouds that are stained with crimson as is the weary field below,

He too is free to go but not to leave, perchance he too, wished to see the end to this needles tirade we wage over the green land that I lie on now, perchance to see the end of the cause we fight though it is not our own.

The end I wished also, but it seems my end has found me first, among the soldiers, in out deadly game.

Often I have skirted it by my very breath, which I gasp for now, as I lie,

my will broken. The clash around me drowned out by my own fear and it seems I shall leave this world as I have forced other to leave it: before our time and seeking resolve, only to be bereft of our lives as another chapter in these accursed years on the battlefield brings with it more blood and more death.

I can still see my brethren fighting their fate, as I have often refused to accept that this was mine, yet fated I was,

As a blackness creeps over me, though I am broken and my eyes dimmed beyond hope, I still see light and chance that someday I will return to linger, free in the lands that sundered me here.

On this field of death new and old.

Swift to rise is flame from mound and slow everlasting sleep, ere the green grass grows and settle I never would.

Yet I would remain here in the land my blood paid for, by and by not, my wish.

But I chose to pay so that others might have the freedom that I have long forgotten, nevertheless still remember, my last thought.

As I slip into the blackness never again to rise.

But rise truly my spirit will, to soar above the wings of my friend and race across the land, free as I never was, but a shadow in my brethren's minds not forgotten, nor harnessed by my duties: As I will fly free.

He looks at me now, with what might be wonder that I am not fearful,

I merely trust he will set me too my fate and in his memory too, perchance, I will linger in the shadows as I took refuge in them when I still walked among the green mounds that call me now.

As I shall not live to see the leave fall from the trees or to be replace by the frost,

But I will trust that my fellows will look on and know that I am safe and I shall be not forgotten.