how to clean a bugle

today is April 25th,

the day on which the Last Post is blown all over the country

as Australia pauses for silence to remember 

those who gave their lives in service of the country. 

wars fill me with horror.

my great-grandfather died on December 10, 1914.

it was the day after my grandfather's birthday

but when i rustled up our bugle this morning

thinking i might let loose a mournful note in memory

it was filthy and housing a number of unfriendly arachnids

clearly something had to be done

 

now the bugle is nice and shiny

thanks to the helpful acidity of the eucalyptus leaves

 i have a wrap i can hide in

 become a stone among trees

and the bugle yields a much more beautiful note

[Kowhai doesn't care she's too busy digging]

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

 Laurence Binyon

+   +   +

and in the remembering, bear in mind

the words of another poet, Charles Causley

who wrote

O war is a casual mistress
And the world is her double bed.
She has a few charms in her mechanised arms
But you wake up and find yourself dead.

                             (‘A Ballad For Katharine Of Aragon’)