While nursing on the Western Front she’d learned
to gnaw on hope, and treasure every hint of joy or grace;
now decades later her young friend (not half her age)
had been delivered of a healthy girl; and so, recalling
her rare days of tranquil summer leave, and treasuring
their gift of poppied fields, she planned to walk the mile
between and pick some of those flame-red Mahurangi
flowers; which she then did, setting them in the milk
bottle that she’d brought for lack of any vase suitable
and nice; then knowing (as good neighbours do) where
to find the key, she set them on the kitchen table with
a pencilled note; decades later now, this welcomed
little one – herself a nurse – gladly tells of that
milk-bottle vase of roadside flowers.
© the Revd Jim McPherson
Mount Coolum, Queensland, Australia
9 February 2015
Image Jim McPherson
There are a number of websites providing information about New Zealand nurses in the Great War: http://www.thetreasury.org.nz/warnurses.htm
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