The White Feather

The White Feather A broken human vessel, bleeding on battlefield’s wire, dying, thinking, “who to blame?” For facing enemy’s fire. England’s jingoistic pride? Recruiting sergeant’s patter? Kitchener pointing, “We need you” In a tone that seemed to matter. Nineteen hundred and fifteen, the years since our Lord’s passion. Now aged nineteen, I follow on scourged in a similar fashion. Head is bleeding, bones are broken, breathing laboured, and shallow, my spirit is ebbing and fading away, like candle wick, scorched past tallow. Who is to blame for my premature death? For my life snatched so violently away? Is it the King and all his men, or politicians, so sombre and grey? I didn’t know the answer, as the angelic host raised me up to my maker, my grace. Then an angel’s eyes fixed me, I shivered inside as a memory was shown by her face. The mist cleared, and revealed, the girl in the park smiling, as we listened, to the band. She was the girl who ended my life! With the feather she placed in my hand.