Here's one of the three songs I've written about it (PM me if you want a recording)...


NAME ON A WALL

All you are, after all, is a name on a wall,
Just a name between names on a stone.
Yet somebody may come who will find himself numb
To the numberless names save your own
And his eyes will there linger, he'll reach out a finger
Across the dark letters to crawl
Just as others have traced other names they have faced
With the fingers they've touched to the wall.

Though your name is asleep on a black granite sheet,
You awake in the minds of your friends
Who have all come to call to read names on a wall
Just to see who has come to his end
And they stand, swapping stories concerning the war
And the dead man they fondly recall.
They're a fitting memorial, warm and corporeal
At the cold stone of the wall.

Through the twistings of fate, I was born years too late
To know anyone's name on the list.
If the two or three veterans whom I have met
Are an inkling of what I have missed,
Then, name, I mourn for you and the other names, too,
For these vets are the best of us all
And I wish I knew why the best flew off to die
And to chisel their names on a wall.

There's no man who dares tell me the depths of the hell
He had plumbed with you there in that fight
So I'm left in the dark till an offhand remark
Brings another grim detail to light.
When the veterans too are as lifeless as you are,
Who'll know then what caused you to fall?
Who will know you as more than just some man of war
Who became just a name on a wall?

Copyright 1998 Sharon E. Abbott    All rights reserved