At the grave of a child
You stop to read
The inscription,
And you cross your heart
And shed a small tear
And give a moment's silence
At the loss of one so young.

And you think back
To when you were a child
And wonder what life would have been like
If you had not lived on,
If you too had died
Thanks to a German blitz
In 1916.

You leave the graveyard,
Your eyes looking down to the weeds,
And you hear the faint laughter
Of children in a garden,
And you curse the sun
For not shining
On one who is now
A pile of rotted bones.

A plane flies low overhead,
And for a moment you fear for the playing children,
Then remember that the war
Was a lifetime or two away.

The plane goes from earshot
And a bird starts singing
Such sweet songs
Almost as if it
Was the soul of a child
Saying thank-you to the sun
For remembering his name.