THE AIR RAID
When I was nine years old, the war was on.
The enemy drowning fast at last; the end
Was near, but first the Allies had to bomb
Our town to drive the fiend aground, and so
We hid below in shelters, praying loud
While bombs were shaking walls and breaking hearts
And windows; I was always first to grab
My bag with sugar when the siren howled,
Then ran as fast as arrow; sheltered well
Beneath, I thought; the drone of bombers near,
Then whizz through air, then once again, three times
Before the end — the siren shrilling flat.
With my mother during WWII. This photo was sent to my father, a POW in Lamsdorf, Germany.
Cosel Doctors – Lamsdorf – Stalag VIIIB/344
Back row from left: Dr B. Smith, Scotland; Dr J. Rigal, France; Dr T. Atkins, Australia; Dr A. Bazin, Russia
Front row from left: Padre L.G. Tudor, South Africa; Dr R.K. Webster, Great Britain; Dr B. Stojic, Yugoslavia; Dr N. Rose, Australia
I chose to repost this poem as this year we are celebrating the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII. My father was in a POW camp in Germany from 1941 t0 1945, and while the bombs were falling on us in Zagreb, he was trudging through deep snow with his mates, forced to march at gunpoint with the retreating German army for about four months before being liberated by the Americans in Nuremberg on April 17, 1945. This poem won The Poem of the Week award in Susan Budig’s Mindful Poetry Contest 2013. The challenge was to write a poem about our childhood in blank verse and iambic pentameter. It now appears in my book Dreams on my Pillow.
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The world has been turned into turmoil by COVID-19, but I keep telling myself, “Thank God, bombs are not falling from the sky!”
Take care! Stay safe! ❤
© Copyright 2020 Irina Dimitric
