PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Making the knock, they call it, in the police and other services.

The visit in the cold grey hours of the morning.

I was once stationed, during a time of war, in a Regimental Headquarters in England.

With my own equipment packed, ready to replace one of the Fallen, I was trained to make that knock.

Grief management, crisis counselling, serving notice of bereavement.

It has many names.

The training was intensive and detailed, as always in the Army.

The plan, as always, was kept simple:

One officer of the highest available rank,

One soldier, preferably one who knew the dead man

And a priest, preferably the family's own.  

The knock, made where possible in the early hours of the Morning,

To catch the family at home.

The officer breaks the news as gently as he can,

Then we all hold on tight and try to weather the storms of emotion which follow.

I was prepared to make that knock.

But nothing in this world prepared me to

Take the knock.

And when it came,

I didn’t hear it.

I was sleeping.

My wife opened the door alone

And when I awoke it was to an inhuman,

All too human,

Keening sound

And a German policeman shaking me.

It sunk in slowly to my still sleeping head,

Our eldest boy,

At age nineteen,

Was dead.

They’d followed a similar plan,

Two officers and a priest of sorts,

They were probably well trained.

But in the maelstrom of grief that shook our house,

They were like wisps of smoke in a whirlwind.

If I met them today I would not know them!

I was only aware of my wife,

Of the enormous scale of our loss,

And that it was all happening again.