Loss

At Balloon Juice, John Cole laments the death of soldier and blogger Andrew Olmsted, whose posthumous blog post can be read here. I don't have anything to say that can't be said better in this poem by Robert Graves, which seems befitting of Olmsted's final words:

When I'm killed, don't think of me
Buried there in Cambrin Wood,
Nor as in Zion think of me
With the Intolerable Good.
And there's one thing that I know well,
I'm damned if I'll be damned to Hell!

So when I'm killed, don't wait for me,
Walking the dim corridor;
In Heaven or Hell, don't wait for me,
Or you must wait for evermore.
You'll find me buried, living-dead
In these verses that you've read.

So when I'm killed, don't mourn for me,
Shot, poor lad, so bold and young,
Killed and gone - don't mourn for me.
On your lips my life is hung:
O friends and lovers, you can save
Your playfellow from the grave.

Andrew will live on in his own words. But as in all wars the cost to us in the loss of this life, and the lives of countless others, is incalculable.