A Soliloquy on Guadalcanal


I should ask but who am I to trespass
On the grim tragedy of their lost youth?
No words of mine can bridge that fifty years,
And if I should question all they have faced,
Will my ignorance earn their cold contempt?

Had I but a glimmer of their courage,
I'd not fear offending their grief to speak.
Yet I would ask them what distinction lives
Between those boys and ageing men, but time?
For is not Red Beach then as now, the same?

Then, as now, the night before was silent,
But for airs and sweet sounds of gentle rain
on trees, of earthy floral scents of forest,
and lapping sea upon the coral shore;
Sea’s fragrant brine yet to mask the dead.

With what sacrifice do they reconcile,
When I see old foes stand and grieve as one?
If the honoured dead could speak for themselves,
Would they forego their future lives unlived?
All this and much more would I ask of them.

For those young boys that died then or live yet,
Are their hearts together bound in death?
For their sad epitaphs will be the same
Choiseul, Malaita, Makira, New Georgia
Santa Isabel, and Guadalcanal.
Location: Solomon Islands

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