The Bugler

In the darkness of night she lay awake
listening to the lonely lullaby creep
through her window, the mournful tune
serenading the lights as they went out
one by one.
For her whole of eleven years
she waited to sleep until the bugler
played his haunting notes that carried
sorrow on the stillness of the night air.
One day the bugler played for her
in the brightness of ten o’clock morn.
Twenty-one guns shot at the sun
but the light remained as her father
was placed in the darkness below,
a triangular flag in his widow’s arms.
Years later, in the darkness of night,
a little girl lies awake listening
for the sempiternal lullaby to creep
through her window. May she never
meet the bugler and have him play for her.