This is Nancy’s prompt posted by David at The Skeptics’s Kaddish W3#202
The Gardener’s Diary, 1940
Diary
Small brown pocket size
RHS
For gardeners
Came back from Dunkirk with my
Dad, nineteen-forty.
Small brown pocket size
RHS
For gardeners
Came back from Dunkirk with my
Dad, nineteen-forty.
______________________________________
The covers
Worn, the entries brief,
But it tells
The story:
The collapse of France – armies
Driven to the sea.
Worn, the entries brief,
But it tells
The story:
The collapse of France – armies
Driven to the sea.
______________________________________
Musty smell
Words terse and cryptic
Dates and times,
ships and trains
No drama on these pages
Vivid nonetheless
Words terse and cryptic
Dates and times,
ships and trains
No drama on these pages
Vivid nonetheless
______________________________________
Postal codes
Of sacks of letters
From soldiers
Writing home
Families keeping in touch
Crucial for morale
Of sacks of letters
From soldiers
Writing home
Families keeping in touch
Crucial for morale
______________________________________
And then, whenTrapped in the pocket –
The order –
Fall back now.
Operation Dynamo –
A desperate bid
______________________________________
Kept in a
An airless locked box
With medals.
Death and birth
The certificates – the stuff –
Records of a life.
An airless locked box
With medals.
Death and birth
The certificates – the stuff –
Records of a life.
______________________________________
For the full story of the postal sorter who went to war and kept a diary, click the link below.
This is brilliant- I’ve just read the full story so to condense it to these verses is miraculous- that lady stanza is so poignant 🩷
Thanks for that very generous comment. After working on the blog post for a while this pretty much wrote itself. And the “shadorma” format was perfect.