Child of Nippon

No path here,
no trail by humans made
in sixty years.
Animal tracks and insect trails abound –
wandering, sniffing, clawing scavengers.
High canopy cutting light,
dense undergrowth making transit
near impossible.

Rusted,
broken Arisaka rifle,
helmet lie
swallowed by lantana.
Bones picked clean and scattered,
beneath a generation’s accumulated detritus.
Poisonous millipede –
bright coloured warning -
makes its home in grinning skull.

No marker,
no headstone,
no letters home,
no remembrance here
for this child of Nippon.
This place is too far off
Kokoda’s track
for location by mourning,
searching kinsmen.
What would he have been if he had lived? –
Doctor, teacher,
farmer, craftsman,
labourer, thief? –
What a waste – someone sacrificed
on the altar of a nation’s pride
and madmen’s egos –
merely mouldering nutrients now
in New Guinea’s soil.

You came under orders,
full of youthful patriotism,
and dread of brutal officers.
You came,
you killed,
you died -
and some forgave you.

While none can find you
in this pathless place -
rest in peace,
for God remembers that
you existed,
were a person, and
had worth
separate from the
sins of war.



James Gagiikwe © 2008