In My Dream The Singing Soldiers Come Poem by Charl JF Cilliers

In my dream the singing soldiers come
over hills and fields and beaches
singing in the sun and mist and rain
songs of freedom flying in their hearts.

The lacerations of a myriad laughing eyes
stare past those visions too far off for care
yet caring still the singing soldiers come
over beaches, hills and fields
with freedom’s tatters flying in their hearts

the armless waving, without gesture,
on and on they come
in dreams of endless rolling hills and fields

and shouldered by their comrades proudly
the stump-legged stride
to the rhythms of sun and rain and mist.

There are no crowds to greet the marching songs
the homeless hunger of the bandaged hearts
that ring as freedom’s tatters hobble on
endlessly over fields and hills

to hearth and home and ultimately rest.