I imagine Mummy
She is listening for Doodle Bugs
Running past St James Square
They make a swooshing noise before
Hitting their targets
Windows are darkening now
As she scurries by them
Like a mouse
Shades being pulled down
All light receding till gone
She is heading towards St Paul’s
She is meeting with a friend
At the statue of St Ann
Dinner was soon to follow
Constant gray clouds of dust
Engulfed her in dirt
London was under
Aerial bombardment
The Luftwaffe would spend
Fifty-seven nights
Bombing the city and St Pauls
Wishing to eradicate it
From the face of the earth
This symbol of London and God
But London endured
St Paul’s remained standing
A symbol of British
endurance
Mummy lived to return home
To the USA
But I still imagine
Still I wonder
Was it the war that
Shaped her personna
Making her so harsh
She once said to me
During a phone call
Not long before her death
She said that
The war was the most
Thrilling period
of her life
I understand that feeling
I know what she was saying
She is gone
St Paul’s is standing
London thrives
Yet still I imagine
We all must come to terms with our upbringing. For some there is more pain to work through than for others. I had what one might call a proper upbringing. Yet still, one filled with my share of pain. My mother was not in London during the 57 nights of the Blitz. This was of course poetic license on my part. She was however living in London during 1943 and 1944 during WWII. She became a lifelong Anglophile. This fact set up some difficult goals for her children to attain for they were not living in Great Britain. They could not become British.
Sometimes due to her scrapbooks I feel as though I was there, in London during the war.
There was a time that I knew nothing about war. An experience that I had in 2005, dictated that I learn about war. Mummy never spoke of her work in London during WWII. She worked for the US propaganda office or the OWI – Office of War Information. I really never knew until I found two scrapbooks while cleaning out the family home. Finding these scrapbooks made me realize what a brave woman she had been. Instead of harboring resentment towards her (resentment that she earned) I came to have significant admiration for her.
I wish to redo these books as they are in a state of disintegration. However, it is exceptionally difficult for me to do so. I am very emotional about the subject. Politicians never give thought to the consequences of wars into which they enter. They have no clue as to the gravity of the collateral damage that accompanies their warring ways. The United States of course had to enter WWII. But, Hitler did not have to begin The War To End All Wars. That war like so many have touched people down through the ages, ages long past the end of the war in question. War shapes people for ages to come.
The following paragraph is taken word for word out from Wikipedia:
“On 31 December, the Daily Mail took the unusual step of publishing the photographer’s account of how he took the picture:
“I focused at intervals as the great dome loomed up through the smoke. Glares of many fires and sweeping clouds of smoke kept hiding the shape. Then a wind sprang up. Suddenly, the shining cross, dome and towers stood out like a symbol in the inferno. The scene was unbelievable. In that moment or two I released my shutter.” – Herbert Mason
The photograph was taken in the early hours of Monday morning and was cleared for publication by the censors to appear in the issue of Tuesday 31 December 1940.
His photo above in the Wiki article is one of the most famous of London of the period. For Londoners it was proof that London was still standing. For the Germans it was proof that she had fallen. Click on the Wiki photo below to enlarge and see St James Square today.
This poem is for the prompt by Victoria Slotto at dVerse instructing us to “Banish boredom thru verb use. Thank you Victoria – you sent me back a bit! I am grateful. You can find her poetry here.
noh where 