Photo by Maria Hossmar on Unsplash

We knew there was a thing called war,
air-raid sirens punctured our nights.
Gas masks in brown boxes hung
across our shoulders as we walked to school,
the sound of an airplane meant fade our of sight.

We walked to school in a group,
that grew as we passed the houses
on Thorley Street. Desmond,
Janet, me, Colin and Brian, Leo,
Michael, Ina, Valerie and Coral,
and Cissy in the last house
at Bird’s Corner.

Air raids of the night before
never were part of our conversation.
We explored instead
roadside greenery, expecially
as spring approached.
Wet ditches introduced aconite,
colt’s foot, jack-in-a-box,
celandine and king-cup.
All bold among last autumn’s
detritus or winter’s final
coarse curls of snow. As weeks went on,
Hazel hung it’s catkins, lamb’s tails
we called them. Nursery rhyme
lived in us.

Looking on those days
with the eyes of an old woman,
I wonder at the children
wondering at spring flowers
keeping war far away,
which in those days, was so close.

December 2003