Sleeping Soundly.

 

 I slept soundly through the war, in my cot unaware   

Of blasted buildings, despair and life-long grief, 

People burning or blown apart, the stray bomb

That crashed through the school-hall roof.

My mother’s father boasted of killing the Boer.

My father’s father was killed on the Somme.

A generation later, though they’d seen it all before, 

Few said no to the second world war.  

 

I don’t know what slaughter my great granddad saw

But he probably fought in someone’s war, he and 

Generations that went before. Men who followed

The call to battle and left their blood to feed the grass 

For a stranger’s grazing cattle.

In the year two thousand and sixty five,   

In Guatemala, the Balkans, Rwanda and Darfur, 

I hope this year’s babies can look back and say,

I slept soundly through the war.