Memories

Do I remember the war you ask?

I remember my childhood

When there was a war

But war was life and life was war

I knew no other.

I remember bright searchlights

Fingering the sky and putting out the stars,

Killing them one by one.

I remember the dull thudding of guns

somewhere over there.

The drones of planes across a darkened sky

Like angry wasps

I remember the fear, the anxious conversations

What if? What If?

Sometimes my mum would wake me

In the middle of the night.

We would go down the garden to the shelter.

I remember the warm blanket she wrapped me in

The fruit pastilles she kept for us to eat.

The silence whilst the bombs dropped outside

Except that I didn't know they were bombs.

I remember the tape criss- crossing the windows

To stop the glass from shattering.

The horror of houses decimated by a bomb

ffffffffffffff

The ration books we use to buy our food and clothing,

My mum said that once you could buy as much as you liked

without coupons

All you needed was money

Imagine going into a shop and saying

I'll have that and that, and that.

My sweet ration, two ounces of chocolate

The boy next door stole my sweets

His mum made him pay me back.

The ice cream van that came once a week

We all raced to the shop after school to be first in the queue,

I remember sitting by the fire listening to the radio

Quiet and warm and sleepy

Children's hour was bliss

I remember the air raid siren walling like a creature lost and

wild,

Running home from school as it started

Waiting In the house on my own lost and frightened.

Afraid the Germans would come and get me,

My Mother said there would never be another war and I

Believed her

Yet somewhere still the children live in fear.

 EPH