supplied the prompt
EGYPT
I write as one who knows nothing;
Let's make that clear at the start.
I've woken to news from Egypt
That, at first, delights my heart.
The singing, the cheering, flag-waving,
Reveal such wild emotion,
But does anyone in that wild throng
Have even the slightest notion
As to how to run a country?
Will even they split into factions?
Will the jostling soon begin,
The actions and reactions?
Will even they split into factions?
Will the jostling soon begin,
The actions and reactions?
'Love of Power' will raise its head again
In another different guise;
Religion or the Military!
Which one is on the rise?
'The Power of Love'...... an emotive phrase:
I prefer 'Goodwill'.
Let's hope Egypt can muddle-through
Once the clamour of joy falls still.
*
------------------------------------------------------
THE UPTURNED BIKE.
I was eight years old.
Old enough to imagine
But not old enough to know.
*
'The Prime Minister is about to
Address the Nation'.
I knew what this would mean.
The bombs would start to fall.
The Germans would march
Up Connaught Road.
I would die.
*
My parents sat huddled
Over the radio.
I fled.
*
The garden shed
Would be my place of safety.
I ran to it,
Slammed and locked the door.
And waited,
My heart juddering in my chest.
What would happen next?
*
The minutes dragged on.
My father 's bicycle lay
Up-ended in the middle of the shed.
He had been repairing a puncture.
I began to spin the wheel.
*
No gentle spinning this .
I batted my hand against the rubber
Over and over.
The wheel whirred
Under my hysterical fingers.
I hear it now.
*
I awaited the worst.
*
I hardly heard my father's gentle tap
On the shed door.
'Everything's all right'.
And it was.
*
I was not a little Jewess
Destined for the gas-chambers.
*
Millions were to die.
*
Seventy years later
I bask in the sunshine
Surrounded by family.
*
I remember you
Ann Frank
*
And the bicycle.
*
2 comments:
Let us hope that Egypt more than muddles through!
Watching the news today I was reminded of the Martin Luther King march, and the tents on the mall in front
of the Lincoln Memorial. In Egypt the tents in circles looking and sounding like the non-violence approach to protesting - I believe even King's photo being used
in Egypt to evoke a poeple wish for change. In other words, this does seem to be a protest of world importance that will shake neighboring dictatorship
regimes, surely? Fingers crossed!
The day you hid in the shed, others were preparing their right to die by their own hand! So many lived to tell the tale, as you did! All I remember is that for a few months there didn't seem to be a war and then
the next thing I knew I was walking about with a square boxthat contained my gas mask! I think I was about 7!
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