Not Lest... (for Remembrance Day)

Circling torn fields of scarlet flowers
 a sparrow’s song cuts the lull.
The thunder muffled into silence as
fear waited with bated breath.
Below the grass, beneath the sludge,
he sleeps in starlit dust;
for sleep brings the end of war
and for us a new remembrance.
You do not know his name,
nor have seen him cry but
still he died in solemn pride.
Fallen, he crumpled in haunting pain
his final dream of summer rain;
of golden corn and tender touch.
He marched with a thousand souls
carrying broken corpses;
and stood as brave men do
not lest because
he was a horse
but, because
he was so brave.