Ken's Poetry

Prisoners Of Love And War

Your mother stood upon this bridge
staring sadly into her past
biting the tears back:
she wanted us to see, to understand,
but we were busy only with ourselves.

You had the clues that she had spun
into the fabric of your growing up,
shared them all with me, but we were blind
and only thought she lingered there too long:
yet once, your father waited in these trees
for her to come and hold him close again.

Through all those years it haunted her,
echoed in her voice on gentle nights
when we were close, gave to our lives
the softness and the warmth that sadness brings.
We barely sensed
among these dripping trees
the misery deep rooted in this soil;
our love was growing in a kinder place.

She brought you here, new-born, and he
came down from the prison camp
and held you, the only time he ever did,
could see what love had wrought
out of despair; a momentary happiness.
That was all there was for you,
and for them the irrevocable ending …
repatriation.