The Stranger On The Shore

This poem is the tale of a veteran of the Normandy landing who honours his fallen comrades for the very last time.

The Stranger on the Shore

He stood on the foreshore in silence just listening and watching each wave,
reflective in thought in that moment, mourning the loss of the brave.
As he leans on his stick, he feels sorrow for comrades who perished and died,
his arthritic hands grip tightly as he studies the incoming tide.

The salty tears of remembrance trickle down his face in a stream,
he thinks of the men who had fallen and wished it was all in a dream.
Those young men who had lots of passion, ambition abruptly destroyed,
families damaged and broken never able to fill such a void.

He screams in anger and fury; he shouts with frustration and grief,
no longer able to fight, just a hope that he gets some relief.
The tempestuous sea holds no secrets she takes whatever is there,
there is no choice or selection just knowledge that nothing is fair.

In that instant he relives the carnage, the noises the screams and the smell,
he weeps like a small child abandoned, a suffering that he cannot tell.
Studying his now crooked fingers eight decades have since past him bye,
permission to grieve friends and comrades before his time will be nigh.

With solemn and sober reflection, he knows this time is the last,
for him his years have been plenty but for them there is no long past.
The stranger on the shore takes a moment in prayer he prays for them all,
as turns to walk from the shoreline that place where many did fall.

ⓒ Teresa Harrison-Best

2024

About the author

Teresa H-B
3262 Up Votes
Teresa lives in Worthing with her husband Stuart and their three rescue cats. She has recently retired from a long career in the Health and Social care sector, and has taken up Mosaics, Pilates and walking cricket. Her love of writing has always been prevalent throughout her life, and she wrote Catawall, fluent in feline following major surgery as a form of therapy. Her love of rhyme and rhythm feature in Catawall and her subsequent children’s books featuring Mackerel a piratical cat who captures the heart of everyone, even the ships mice and rats! ‘Mackerel and The Jolly Daisy’, ‘Mackerel and the Treasure Map’ and ‘Mackerel Saves the Day’. Her latest project Doggee Longlegs enters young fiction aimed at older children. Doggee is about young dog who starts life in a rescue shelter, overlooked on the homing day. Teresa is a great advocate of all animals and feels passionately about animal welfare, both at home and abroad.

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