Post 4 Suffer the little children

I’m LOOKING  .  . . .             

For a return to passionate youth
Confident for their future
Celebrating their present
Long haired; not scared
Unfettered by ‘Woke’
Marching together
Singing of love
Longing for peace
Clamouring for justice
Loving their neighbours
Cheering on Global United
Discovering the true ‘power of flower’

 

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On our media screens we see the children of the world suffering for the sins of the adults. Desperate parents try to save them from the horrors of war and vicious ideology. And the biggest tragedy? Nothing changes. This next poem was written in the eighties; after watching an episode of that brilliant series ‘World at War’.

I still remember the feeling of shock and helplessness as I watched another Mother’s desperation to stop the nightmare that was unfolding. I had that very same feeling, watching little children being handed over razor wire to complete strangers at the Kabul airport.

 

DEJA VU       

It’s only a five second shock of old footage
Of grey shaky images
A woman; a shabby refugee, standing by a wall
Grasps to her shoulder her son, of about five years
She is talking into his ear
He wants to listen, but he is deaf with fear
You can’t see the soldiers; but they are there
She is wearing a thick grey coat, a black headscarf
The boy wears a grey school cap
You know they are in deadly danger

For those few short endless seconds
I am that woman. That is my son
I cannot bear his childish realization of the nightmare
I am whispering and soothing; trying to shut out the truth
My panic, pushing against my paper thin control
Babbling endearments; desperate to divert both our terrors.

He clutches me to him
But his wide eyes follow the unseen soldiers
And his head shakes slowly from side to side

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My generation were so lucky. Despite the privations of post war life, most of us were raised and educated, fed and clothed, housed and cared for. I knew the security of the burgeoning Welfare state; something that war had made an obvious necessity. How much ‘better off’ we felt in those days of straitened circumstances. How I wish that the generations of today, and the future, could also experience that confidence that life was, and would be good. And I do have hopes that Covid, like history changing events of the past, will prove to be a catalyst for a change for the better.

And, just to finish on a lighter note, a little ode to remember September

ABSENT MINDFULNESS  September 2016

I’m sitting in the garden
Wind whipping wild around
Sun dappling, clouds scudding
And in the trees, the sound
Of goldfinch, wren and warblers
Life happening all around

I came up here for something
But what I can’t remember
Instead I see and feel and hear
This day in late September