based on my Dad's experiences during the Second world War
Plane Spotting
While men-boys were strafed to pieces
Shredded red - dead
A limp from festered leg of childhood
Saved you from the front lines.
They put you in a tree instead
To decipher sunlight glint
On airplane wings
Enemy or friend;
To shoot down or defend.
A silent flightless bird
Huddled in the branches of disguise
binoculars, your eyes.
When the planes pinpricked
Sky and disappeared
And silence like a noise descended,
You abandoned tree
For horse and cart.
Transport for the home bereft
Having left all goods and chattel
Fleeing from machine gun rattle
And rail cars meant for cattle
Destined for the human abattoir.
At sea side with the savior ships
The sucking lips of death
You felt on salty breeze.
Sent the horses back.
No time to pack;
To say goodbye to mother, sister, brother.
Stepped in queue behind a coffin.
How often will death proffer
Such chance
The gift of happenstance.
To sail into a different season
Without treason of the soul.
In Danish greenhouse find
Among the aisles lined with roses
Solace, refuge,
A sunlight glint
On white gold hair
Loosed from kerchief blue
And you knew.
Deciphered future,
Past, present, tomorrow,
Life and death, joy and sorrow.
Grapher April 23, 2013
