A Hero Remembered

What could I write about this week but Captain Sir Tom Moore, and his extraordinary walk. One of the last of those who fought in the Second World War, in India and Burma - I allude to India in the poem - and a true hero. An ordinary man who showed us extraordinary things, who personified the "Bulldog spirit" of that war, in peacetime, against the very different enemy of the pandemic. I've also put some of his sayings into this poem, as well as a conflated quotation from Ecclesiastes - "the race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong".

A Hero Remembered

Walking, walking, along, and more:
Fundraising today is Captain Moore;
The sun will shine again, he said,
And such a sense of hope he spread,
When he told us clouds will go away,
And tomorrow will be a better day;
An ordinary man, elderly, and yet,
When the NHS came under threat,
He showed how this quiet veteran
Could make a difference, he began
A walk to remember, a walk of hope:
To inspire those who could not cope;
To find that fire that burns so bright,
One of the last soldiers, come to fight;
One Indian summer, in twilight years:
One man against so many of our fears;
"We will get through this stronger still":
Where there is a way, there is the will;
And even though Covid took him then,
And he now walks far beyond our ken,
He will be remembered, in many hearts:
One hundred laps, in fits and starts,
For the race is not always to the strong,
And now, farewell, Captain Tom, so long;
You gave us hope when needed most
And now the bugle sounds a final post;
A new journey beckons, our rolling stone:
And now you will never walk alone.