"Dreamers" - Siegfried Sassoon

Poetry. I always considered poetry as like reading a book, but being half awake at the same time. You are reading everything, but in your stupor, you are only catching and understanding bits and pieces. "The...walked...road." Well who walked, and where did he walk. Man, dog, sea tortoise? up, down, left, across? Well, it was a sea tortoise, and he was swimming, because the road was under water, but for sea tortoises that is classified is walking; I should think everyone would know that. And he was crossing the road, because the super fast school of fish were feeling generous at the time and stopped to let him pass. Poetry can be pretty confusing sometimes, but other times it can be easily understood. Dreamers (second poem) is one such poem.

I've always had an interest in wartime novels. Being from Newfoundland, "No Man's Land" by Kevin Major, was nigh on burned into my brain in high school, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Dreamers was an interesting read, to say the least. When one usually thinks of war, they tend to dwell on the glorifying action, courageous soldiers charging into battle, and the like. However this poem focused more on what the soldiers were dreaming about rather than what the people at home are imagining. It talks of pretty regular days things a clean bed, maybe a home cooked meal, something you would take for granted if you weren't living in a trench, stepping in your own filth and crawling over bodies of other men day in and day out. War isn't always fighting for freedom, and running out in the blaze of gunfire taking out enemy soldiers, getting your leg blown off and then winning a medal. Soldiers are people too, and they have feelings and thoughts of home just like we do. However their thoughts might be a little more simple than ours.

A side note of sorts; War is sometimes an answer to the problem. I won't classify any actual events, because it's pretty subjective and one event that I may think that war is the answer to, others may see it in a different light. However war happens. If it wasn't for our soldiers back then, we would not be here today. So perhaps them thinking of home, and a nice warm bed gave them the motivation to go on and charge into battle without fear. Perhaps those homely thoughts, and the thought of losing them if they lost the war, was enough to push even the weakest of men to accomplish great feats of bravery. Or maybe not. Who knows.