My Friend. The Mi Amigo fly past. Ten thousand people in a field, and all you could hear were the birds.

Such a moving service, for that is what it was. A remembrance service for the ten young men who chose, in the moment of choosing, to give their own lives rather than risk the lives of others.

Their aircraft, a badly shot up B17 bomber, limping home, engines failing, the young men, probably injured, equally exhausted, the chance of safety, a playing field in a park, the children and women, they were there first.

Instead of landing, they chose to crash into the trees, oaks, beech, chestnuts.

Leaves and branches and men and machine all alike in the time of the fall. Settle on the ground in pieces.

A boy, in the field. His heart forever moved.

He tends the memorial stone that marks the place.

The boy becomes a man, time enriched.

Still he tends the memorial.

Today, ten thousand people stood, in silence.

Birds flew over head.

And in the trees.

And all that could be heard.

Was their song of spring.