My Anzac Day tribute

As a child, teenager and young adult I wrote quite a bit of poetry.

A lot of it (especially in my teenage years) was angst-ridden and of dubious literary worth. Some of it wasn't bad. One poem got published; another two were borrowed by a musically talented friend and turned into (if I do say so myself) pretty damned good songs.

But as I was writing, I had no idea there was another poet in my family. I can't remember when I became aware of Donald McDonald, my great-uncle, a casualty of the Second World War. But after I did, I read his poetry — and realised he was a far, far more talented wordsmith than me.

Donald McDonald, a farmer in peacetime, was taken prisoner at El Alamein. He died on August 17, 1942 when the Italian prisoner of war ship he was being transported in was torpedoed. Family history goes that at that exact time my great-grandmother was gardening, stopped, looked up and said, "Something's happened to Donny."

This is the last poem Donald McDonald wrote, at Sidi Reszegh, Libya, where he had previously been wounded.  I share it with you as glimpse into the thoughts and insights of an Anzac soldier.

Sidi Reszegh

Children are born in the land of the green grass springing
Knowing the voice of the streams and the rain's caresses,
Knowing the scent of the flowers, and the larks' sweet singing,
Feeling the West wind cool in their bright young tresses.

But this is the Desert—Earth's bones to the old sun lying,
A fit place this for the ancient passions' burning;
And men who were children in sweet green lands are dying
Bone of their bodies to bone of the Earth returning.

Bare belief their bodies through steel hail urges;
If need be, here I'll die, my spirit braving
The darkness; but Ah, how the child in my heart upsurges,
Yearning for streams, for the larks, and the green grass waving.