A Friday morning in November

Poem by Jennifer Bell

They lay buried in white dust for two hours
A table flying from the blast settled
Across their bodies as they drifted just
As in a normal bed time calling them
To sleep. The city burned an orange glow
Warm in the night; occasional rumbles
Marked the distance as in summer thunder
Storms across the land punctuating dreams.
They would have slept the coming years away
Unhurt, unknowing who had won the war
Never to have recognised a new day
But for that chap whose spade knocked on the door.

Two souls freed for a spell to live their life
A dusty daughter and an airman’s wife.

Jennifer is from Somerset Area Meeting. The poem is based on her experience of the blitz of Coventry in world war two, when she and her mother were bombed. She writes: ‘We were only under the rubble for two hours but the effects of the war have lingered throughout all my family life… It is shameful that children are still being punished in this way.’

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