A poem I wrote about the only Australian serviceman buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia USA. It is an interesting story, part of our history that few people I suspect would know.
GARDEN
OF STONE … Maureen
Clifford © The #Scribbly Bark Poet
The ‘ flowers of stone’ in serried rows stand tall - facing the sun
each day endless processions
pass them by at Arlington,
and so the garden grows and
grows, its beds tailored and neat
its peacefulness only disturbed
by many marching feet.
Four hundred thousand share
this place – interred with dignity
The Old Guard do the honours –
veterans of the military.
Each day a ‘flower’ watered with tears is planted in
the soil
and so each day the garden grows
as more wars we embroil.
And in the garden buried deep
one Aussie hero lies
Francis D Milne – a pilot who
once flew our cobalt skies.
He shares with Sergeant Joseph
Paul a casket and a plot.
They died together and were
found – but separated – not.
New Guinea forests held them
close, this harshest of frontiers
would not easily relinquish its
prize of forty years .
‘twas 1989 saw them discovered and then named
from the tangled US aircraft
wreckage jungles had reclaimed.
November 26th in
1942 they died,
their headstone in the garden
tells us this. This place of pride.
The resting place of heroes, a
nation’s hallowed ground,
serene and green and beautiful
where blossom trees abound .
This son of Queensland far from
home – interred in foreign soil,
the only Aussie buried here,
who left this mortal coil
fighting for king and country
far away from kin and home.
He rests forever – one more ‘flower’ in the garden of stone.
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