The Fate of the Soldier

Sunlight glistens on the gentle waves,

Hiding the creatures below

That follow the flesh that they all crave

Floating on to the unknown.

Softly bopping along with the tide,

The fallen soldier bemoans.

And rocking gently from side to side

He bargains with the fate he’s shown.

“Am I doomed to die in this dingy at sea?

Is this the harvest I have sewn?

Will I never lay eyes on my beautiful love

Whose light face so brightly shone?”

He followed that bright face miles away,

Forgetting his friends and his home.

Now it seems she had led him astray…

Now he’s completely alone.

And yet even if he had glimpsed his dark fate,

That the waters would take down his bones,

He still would have followed that beautiful face

For the chance to hear her sweet tones once more,

For the chance to feel her and kiss her once more.

He would condone any fate…

Even one as amazing as his:

Bobbing away onward to the unknown,

His flesh being food for the fish.

Surely his fate was set in stone.

Surely he would die alone.

And the creatures below will have his bones.

BOOM! CRASH! The fallen soldier looks up.

His eyes are bombarded by wonder…

An island, a ship, a fort, cannons lit!

Wood and stone being torn asunder!

The tide had led this soldier back to his home!

Cannon fire resounded all around him.

His small dingy was rocked back and forth.

From the ship one could see a tattered battered soldier

Navigating his dingy to port.

Too small to be noticed by the cannon manners,

Too big not to be full of hope,

The soldier, face beaming, sailed past the dark ship

Onwards towards the white fort.

“Who knows if I shall live through this day?

Or if I shall again see my lover’s bright face?

But the chance to die fighting,

The chance to die trying,

Is one that I shall gladly take.

Why flinch to give up my singular life

When my entire homeland is at stake?”

Thus thinking, an idea popped into the head

Of the battered soldier, starving to death.

Dehydrated and weak, and failing of breath,

The soldier turned back towards the ship firing lead

Into the walls of the fort he had known

Since birth: the only defense of his home.

Without hesitation and without delay

The soldier navigated around the bay,

Using the rotting oar to push the creaking dingy,

No one could hear him say:

“What is my life compared to this island

And all of the lives here at stake?”

From the fort one could see a man leave a dingy

And slip on the ship through a small cannon space.

Minutes later a cannon would fire again,

But this cannon was turned and would hit the wrong place.

A hole torn in the hull of the attacking ship

Allowed eager water to fill the lower decks.

From the fort one would see

(Though they’d scarcely believe)

The ship groan and snap sideways like a broken neck,

Trapping the poor souls

Aboard that dark vessel

In the dark waters below.

No one would honor that battered soldier

Who gave up his life for his home.

But deep in that isle on a lover’s bright face

Tears shone,

Glistening in the sunlight, for a brave soldier

Who’s fate remained unknown.