In a photograph, the child stands still,
Born in a time when hope was a thrill,
His mother’s love, tender and bright,
Extinguished too soon, stolen by night.
At six, he learned what loss truly meant,
Her eyes closed forever, her life was spent.
Two brothers by his side, they grew in the shade,
Of a world preparing for war’s cruel trade.
The drums of 1914 called them to fight,
Three boys now men, their destination blight.
He fell in 1917, in mud and despair,
His dreams buried there, beneath death’s stare.
The photograph fades, the memory thins,
A boy, a mother, a war that wins.
Yet in that still image, their echoes remain,
A story of love, of loss, of pain.
Verbal Alchemy 