Many years ago I visited the United States and spent a day at Gettysburg. That evening I put my thoughts into verse. This poem was published in my first book of verse; "If it Rhymes...It's Poetry"

WHERE DOGWOODS BLOOM

The year was eighteen sixty three
In Gettysburg P.A.
In June a dreadful fight was fought,
Remembered still today.
In June when summer warmed the land,
But not the hearts of men;
For hate and fear were present here
And time and time again,,
Man faced his brother, then fired shots
Amid the cannon's boom.
A field of hate was Gettysburg
Where now the dogwoods bloom.

Yes, dogwoods bloom among the graves
Where gallant men lay dead.
The pink and white of fragrant flowers
Blossom overhead
As if to prove a battlefield
Can be a place of peace,
When cannons stop their thundering,
And shouts of soldiers cease;
But let our feelings rest a while
Is there really room
To think of bloodied battlefields
Where now the dogwoods bloom?

One battle of a civil war
They fought for four long years;
Many months of torture
And blood and sweat and tears.
Where man would stalk on lonely prey
And never make a sound,
Then face the prey, his fellow man
And fell him to the ground.
A senseless, bloody civil war;
Four years of dark'ning gloom,
In many towns like Gettysburg
Where now the dogwoods bloom.

What think you of this monument
To warriors untold?
What think you of the battle scars
On tree and bush and mould?
What think you of the generals
Who led their men to war
And of their unknown heroes
Who had led the way before?
You may look upon this place
With hate and fear and doom;
But I shall think of Gettysburg
As a place where dogwoods bloom.