Sandakan Memorial

This poem was printed in the Sandakan Familes Newsletter 4, April 2011, pages 7-8. I took my inspiration from the following quotation at the Australian War Memorial in Sandakan, Borneo:

"This is something I never will be able to forget.  I cannot get to sleep now - I cannot sleep until 3 or more in the morning.  It's all buried somewhere inside me."
- Unknown Australian soldier, Australian War Memorial, Sandakan.

We are the heart of what was Sandakan.
where pert birds burst the silence with their song
and captivated couples walk along
neat pathways where dark marches once began.

There are ornamental plants here now:
red rows of uniforms stand on parade
by little resting places giving shade
near rusty relics where the jungle towered
as blood and sweat were washed away.  The thud
of boots transformed the swamp into this pond
of mute pink budding tongues protruding from
green lily-faces, rising through the mud.

In the pavilion you will see us gaze
framed neatly in the past, safe in the mist
of the unspeakable, that still persists
exploding peace and purpose as it preys,
while nightly, the mosquitoes' piercing whines
are far off spitfires from the other times.

© Hazel S S Hall

29 December 2010.