writings
REFLECTIONS AFTER FIFTY YEARS
All material is copyrighted 2002 Henry H. George
Fifty years of silence, beginning to fade.
They speak for those who cannot speak from the grave.
I see them on programs about D-Day, VE-Day and VJ-Day.
They try to speak of the unspeakable
That they have lived with for fifty years or more,
And as they try to talk now, for the first time,
They falter, their voices fall silent;
as tears fall down emotion wracked faces
For comrades they saw die those long years ago.
I was just a child when they went off to war.
They finally came home and started families,
Friends and neighbors who are with us today.
But I, like they, wonder about families never started
Who might have been my friends today
They say they are not heroes, and maybe that is true,
But I bow to them all in homage,
Both the living and the dead,
As wrapped in fear and terror, they fought
That I would be free.
I have been honored to kneel at the wall
And touch the name of a childhood friend;
And though not knowing any of those asleep
For half a century or more,
Stood among the thousands in the Cambridge-American
Cemetery in England, tears filling my eyes
For those who had fallen for me.
I always knew if I ever got the chance,
I would go where they are
To honor them and say a prayer
That could not be said as a child.
To those of you who yet live, I hope you will understand
That just as you can't find the words to speak
Of what you lived through,
I will never find the words to express my feelings
Of thankfulness and respect for you.
It is here in my heart and in tears
On a far away grave.
Hunter George
1995