Hung on the Wire (Written June 1985)

Hung on the Wire
(to a casualty of the Somme - July 1916)

Can they understand you now Grandfather?
Can they ever understand a corpse that's dust?
How can they understand,
seven decades come and gone,
and you Grandfather - hanging on the rust?

Can they understand a life that's given?
Can they ever know what you'd become?
Of a battle nearly won
finished by a Mauser gun
In a crater, drawing shell-fire, on the Somme?

Did you play where I play dear Grandfather?
Did you kick a can out in the street?
Now the can's become a ball
I'm your Grandson growing tall
and you are dead and we will never meet...