Anzac Day at Patonga

Diana Perlowski's wonderful letter published in the last edition of Peninsula News describing the moving Anzac Day Dawn Service held at Patonga this year reminded me of the following poem which I wrote many years ago describing the same simple but immensely moving ceremony:

There were no flash officials,

no pomp and circumstance,

no clash of drums and cymbals;

politicians to vainly prance.

There was just the villagers

standing beneath the light

shining from the monument

in the last hour of the night.

And as the sun arose from

the waters across the bay

a kookaburra chose to send

his greetings to the day.

As his song combined

with the sound of gentle waves

we quietly prayed for those

asleep in distant graves,

And in the glimmering dawn

in a true Australian way -

perhaps for the briefest moment -

we shared their Anzac Day.

Email, 7 May 2017

Vic Jefferies, St Huberts Island