Poem - 'Resistance'
Resistance By Simon Armitage
It’s war again: a family carries its family out of a pranged house under a burning thatch.
The next scene smacks of archive newsreel: platforms and trains (never again, never again),
toddlers passed over heads and shoulders, lifetimes stowed In luggage racks.
It’s war again: unmistakable smoke on the near horizon mistaken for thick fog. Fingers crossed.
An old blue tractor tows an armoured tank into no-man’s land.
It’s the ceasefire hour: godspeed the columns of winter coats and fur-lined hoods, the high-wire walk
over buckled bridges managing cases and bags, balancing west and east – godspeed.
It’s war again: the woman in black gives sunflower seeds to the soldier, insists his marrow will nourish
the national flower. In dreams Let bullets be birds, let cluster bombs burst into flocks.
False news is news with the pity edited out. It‘s war again:
an air-raid siren can’t fully mute the cathedral bells – let’s call that hope. |
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