The Shadow by Geoff Speechly

credit Gencraft

Dark is the shadow on my baby’s face

As I look at her in this awful place.

The soldiers broke the bedroom door

And smashed our lives; blood on the floor

Is the only carpet we have left; no, not we, but I-

For they took my man, and said they’d try

Him as a terrorist; he, who’d never raise

His voice much less his arm in anything but praise

For friends and peace. The shadow on her little cheek

Is red; she is so tiny and so weak…

I hear her feeble breath and mine begins to falter

Oh, I love her so much, my man-bloodied daughter,

And pray, with all my failing strength

That God may grant respite throughout the length

Of our poor country, and if we have to die

Let it be for freedom that we cry.

(First Published in a Hightown Writers Anthology A Book of Delights 2016)