We won’t forget you, Ukraine
We won’t forget you, Ukraineas the sirens soundin the lonely forestswhere your children walk. We won’t forget you, Ukrainewhile the world’s leaderspontificate and prevaricateand your
April 28, 2023
My mother died in 2001 and I realize now that there is so much I don’t know about her life and can no longer ask. This is something mirrored by many of my friends. As older relatives die history dies with them, especially when written letters and diaries are replaced by emails and social media. It is easy for people to forget what happened yesterday let alone twenty years ago. A news story can be huge one minute and disappear from the front pages the next.
I have written this chronicle of my life expressed in poetry in order to give my grandchildren and their peers some insights into the life I and my generation have lived. We Baby Boomers have certainly experienced massive social and technological change.
Perhaps there are people whose lives turn out exactly as expected, but I imagine they are few and far between. Certainly the twists and turns of my life have surprised me and I suspect many others born in the post-war era would echo my own experience. We may have lived through the Swinging Sixties but we were often remarkably naïve about life and its possibilities! I hope these poems reflect some of this period.
We won’t forget you, Ukraineas the sirens soundin the lonely forestswhere your children walk. We won’t forget you, Ukrainewhile the world’s leaderspontificate and prevaricateand your
I lie in my bath, and I think of her,many worlds away in Kiev,where the air raid sirens blareand drones endlessly circle overhead. I lie
Saturday afternoon in Wiltshire’s winter, above me posters of Beatles, Stones, the Yardbirds, a calendar ticking off the days to term’s end, a photo of
The poet closed her bookand led us Brodie-girlsin tense excitementto walk out of school gatesto break the rulesand dive into the dark.The castle ruin emerged
On a lazy Sunday afternoona bloom of girlsmellow yellow on the warm green lawn,weave daisy chains of hopeblow dreams in the wind,as the boys preen
Won 2nd place in the Elmbridge Literary Festival 2021 Poetry Competition No Music There was no music at her funeralbut we could sense her thereas
The day Teal ate your hatyou weren’t best pleased.He chewed it well, that dear dog,his sloppy yellow jaw gnawing awayat the brown felt and trim.
I reach my hand up to the skyand touch a silencesoft as a silken spider’s web. The only sound, in blossom-laden trees,are songbirds,their twitter like