(Part 3 – Goodbye, Dad)

It's Christmas Day,

nineteen twenty-five,

but we won't celebrate,

no joy feels alive.

Months have passed

and I know nothing at all,

about what's happening

on the front line's walls.

Not a single letter,

not even a telegram

to let me know,

what's been, what's going to go.

A knock on the door,

it breaks my thoughts—

a letter arrives,

I can't believe it's sought.

In haste, I open,

reading aloud,

news from the trenches,

finally allowed.

Written by my father's hand,

it says he loves me,

if he dies, it's for the land,

and for me.

All the pain he sees around,

Oh God, what horror,

what a dreadful sound.

He also tells me of the dead,

the countless fallen ahead,

he suffers each day,

he doesn't wish this on me—

this is how his letter ends,

with misery and plea.