"Letters to the Front 1918 (I)"

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Letters to the Front 1918 (I)

I sit like a time-travelling eavesdropper

Peering into their world without full understanding

I awaken the love, the pain, the loneliness and the heartache

I receive the lessons of war and plague without asking

I take in their feelings without permission or conversation



Oh, they speak to me through the decades of decay

They tell me what meant each day's value and the family's backbone

Again and again they send their letters heavy with practical emotion

Again and again I open these singular vaults, full of passages of meaning

I am shocked to stillness and mourning for those I never knew but carry within me



He answers them with precise measure, each response noted on envelopes from home

From this side of the grave, from this side of the big water, I note the progress of this one-sided conversation

From the pages in my hands that sometimes quake at the reality

There on the technology undreamt of in their time, are displayed all human need

Before my eyes emerge the records of their life and common dread



We should learn from this prying into their lives and I ask forgiveness if these acts awaken old ghosts, long sleeping

We mortals living desire that which such letters give us and we must feel that living backwards may mean living forwards

These letters to the front are blessings for understanding, scars for recall, reminders of what we should already know

I observe the father, full of pride and lessons, veiling his love with the matters of the farm and family news

I see his hand reaching out across the miles holding his son as a child but a man, hoping against the odds he comes home unchanged, hoping he just comes home



The mother lays her heart on the page for her dear boy, so many miles and meanings away at the front

I see her longing too as it fights for a place on the page and in his mind and heart, straining to pull him back home

Brothers and sisters, sometimes amusing, sometimes serious, forge their thoughts , mostly unaware of the curtain that hangs partly drawn across their lives

A curtain that could close in an instance and blot out even the hardiest of hearts, the strongest of souls

I cast back to my relatives and ask for their recognition of our frailty and our further respect for this son of Canada who lies in France



We will join you and those before you in peaceful slumber, hoping the mists of time and warfare clear the air and out souls, so that your sacrifice was acknowledged

The spirits read these letters now and I trust you watch with pity

Uncle, when I stand before you, I will shake your hand and see into your heart

May that time register all thought and feeling with us all, just as these few moments in a small room at a desk, reveal some secrets of those letters to the front


(c) 2009 S. Sarkozy-Banoczy