With a Grateful Heart and Everlasting Thanks: A Dedication to the ANZACS
by Naushali Navaratne, Harkaway Hills College
Finalist, Years 5 – 6, performance poetry
The year was 1915, the orders were clear,
To land on the beaches and show no fear,
A 100 meters above them, were steep rocky cliffs,
But still, our brave ANZACS, still did they persist.
They jumped from boats with rifles steady,
But now the problems had started already,
The landmarks here, they did not know,
They had landed at the wrong beach, but fear they did not show.
The 8 months the fighting endured,
Sickness and death could not be cured,
In trenches narrow and brutally cramped,
For 8 long months, here they camped.
They wrote to the ones, they missed so dearly,
Their love for them, radiating ever so clearly,
And when the bugles called them back,
They left those departed on the sand so black.
No victory came, no land was gained,
But forever we remember that great campaign,
While we wept, their courage found,
Still kept the legacy, of that sacred ground.
They fought not for glory or fame,
But answering the call, when it came,
From the coasts of Australia to New Zealand’s green shore,
They sailed to a war, they had not chosen, nor asked for.
More than a hundred years have flown,
The trenches silent, the poppies grown,
But still we gather, heads held high,
To honour those we bid goodbye.
They taught us to be brave and true,
While fighting hard for all they knew,
Gallipoli, it’s more than a place in a land far away,
It’s the silence heard when our respects we pay.
We will remember them.
Lest we forget.
Want to read more poems? Explore the other Years 5 – 6 finalists.