see note at the end of the poem Photo: John Holtom
Water
a poem
I stopped at a farm to ask for water,
walking the nine parched miles to the coast,
to swim and escape a while from the others –
well worth the walk. (I’d bus it back though.)
It was early August. Very soon bombs would fall
into Hiroshima and Nagasaki – far-off cities
with unforgettable names. Heat I recall,
and animal smells; and the tall, hollow-ticking
clock in the dark kitchen, its huge black hands
minute perfect but two full hours behind.
This holding, wedged between Welsh mountains,
had no truck with Double Summer Time.
The farm wife watched me drink, without a word,
water – cold, tasting of iron, pumped from the earth.
Gerard Benson
Hiroshima’s devastation as photographed by John Holtom from the dome that is now part of the Hiroshima Memorial Park. Sent to Kure as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force, he said: ‘At the first opportunity several of us drove there to have a look at that stricken city. Seeing a tall building still standing, we crunched our way up on the broken glass that covered the spiral staircase under the skeleton dome… From the top we gazed out across a vast sea of almost complete devastation – a sight not easily forgotten. Nearby, a man was selling “souvenirs”, such as pieces of melted glass – but we did not want such grisly mementoes.’
