Freedom's Fight

Brother’s in the army,

They took the cows away,

And Mother’s working on the farm,

But Willie’s here to stay.

It gets so lonesome quiet like

With no one round the house

And I’d just sit up in the loft

As quiet as a mouse.

But now, with just the two of us,

We climb up the hay loft,

And sit there, with our dangling legs,

And think of what we’ve lost.

Then, oft as children do,

We’d soon forget our loss,

And push each other off the sides,

Laughing at the cost.

It’s hard to think, in times of war,

About what you want most--

With all the scenes about you fast,

With none that you can boast.

But Willie and I--we don’t like dwelling

Much on thoughts of past.

We’d rather think of where we are,

Enjoy it while it lasts.

As children, we would romp and play,

Amid the sound of guns,

And chase each other round the house,

Like the soldier turns and runs.

We dreamed so big, yet never thought

We’d see the day we’d thought

Should be our castle in the clouds,

Around it tied the knot.

But now we’re grown, Willie and I,

And perhaps much more than most,

Stand looking back on childhood,

Like Cassias to Caesar’s ghost,

And wonder how we could have thought

To safely slip outside,

And climb that great big barn loft,

Resting in it’s side,

And hardly care that all around us

Raged the battle on,

And burned our house before our eyes,

Took my brother down.

Brother was in the army,

They took the cows away,

And mother’s working on the farm--

But Willie’s here to stay.

Willie and I, we both are grown,

With family still to raise,

And looking back,

We hope our own

Won’t live to see those days.

Oft as children do,

They’ll soon forget their loss,

Of freedoms my brother fought for--

That now it seems--are lost.