Perhaps it is
the raw power: marching threat of uniforms,
guns, blaring brass and crashing drums,
celebrating events of forgotten horror.
Perhaps it is ancestral memory of other marches,
of limping cripples and grieving women
become widows with war orphaned children.
Perhaps it was
a weeping youngster's farewell embrace
in a gloomy railway station,
imploring me to return from
my own march to war.
And perhaps that is why, even today,
a parade will fill me with great sadness
and I cannot help but cry.
