1950's Dawn Parade
It is coming we know
Memories, knowledge, forbidding glow
Ritual signs unfurling before
Gathering crowd at sympathy's shore
Mourning tide softening eyes
Hats and booze to dim the rise
Shadows play on the council's pride
Mayor and Vicar side by side
Boy scouts, guides more kids in drill
Flags, band, flowers colour Calvary hill
Broken pipe alone and tall
Darkness remaining in lighted hall.
Cenotaph, symbolic empty tomb
Sculptured lament for innocents' doom
Horrors recalled, imagined, before
This hallowing of memories store
Dawn reframes assembly's fray
Rising sun lightening sorrows way.
The Carterton cenotaph has a broken column as the statue centrepiece.
© John Fairbrother 2013
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