2018 Concert Series Gallipoli to the Somme | Page 18

Part Three – Grieving
15. Ellen’s Vigil - Solo soprano. Poem by Lorna Staveley Anker (New
Zealand poet, 1914-2000), from The Judas Tree: Poems by Lorna
Staverley Anker. Edited by Bernadette Hall, Canterbury University
Press, 2013.
Benjamin
Isaac
Tom
Passchendaele
Ypres
and Somme

three ovals float

on the cold wall
plastered whiter

than their bones,
young, khaki’d,

their bud-tender eyes

premonition filled.
Ellen,
her three boys gone,

transplanted seventy years

from Lurgan’s linen
no longer counts crops

in season

but digs, diligently, delicately,

digs down

further down
her spade searching

her garden for
three lost sons
Thomas Isaac and Ben.
16. Kemal Ataturk Memorial - Text by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,
commander of the Turkish 19th Infantry Division, commemorating the
conflict at Gallipoli 1915. Memorial created in Canberra, Australia, 1985,
refurbished 2007.
Those heroes who shed their blood and lost their lives, you
are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest
in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and
the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side in this country
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