“Never such innocence again”
Philip Larkin, MCMXIV
http://www.wereldoorlog1418.nl/corner/larkin.html
Cool in my outstretched palm the perfect sphere sits
Its surface milky white and streaked with blue
“Go on Harry, use your two-er”
I pitch the marble at the playground wall.
A siren screams; Mrs Taylor claps her hands,
Chivvies us along
“Come on children, form a line;
You’ve got your gas-mask boxes, good”
Robert’s dad had come last Christmas
To build the concrete shelter round the back;
We troop into the airless room
Pale bulbs hang above the benches where we sit;
The steel doors are closed; we listen.
At first a distant throbbing roar
Echoes around the hills – the ‘planes;
And then the ack-ack barrage starts up.
A rattling metal shower hit the roof
“It’s alright, only shrapnel from our guns”
Says Bill, whose Dad’s over in France.
The siren sounds again;
We rush into the fading light.
The playground glints with sherds of window glass.
I find the fragments of my shattered globe;
Trying to collect them in my hand,
I cut my finger, drawing blood, and cry.
Martin Locock, 1997
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