Our Day, Not D-Day Poem by C Richard Miles

I, too, remember Arromanches,
but not the town long famed of yore
where soldiers breached the sandy shore
in D-day's fierce contest for France.

We took a troupe of girls and boys,
not in the June, but February.
No guns, no tanks to sport had we,
just cricket bats and balls, our toys.

The war museum visited,
a mere distraction it would seem
like a cartoon upon the screen
inside the mind of every kid.

They marvelled at the uniforms;
with dressing up their major thought,
the children never really caught
the meaning of the conflict's storms.

Quite soon their brief attention palled;
the gruesome graphics simply spurned,
the girls and boys quite quickly turned
unshocked to thoughts of bat and ball.

We played beach-cricket on the sand
in winter; we made quite a sight,
not like those boys who came to fight
on a far-off and foreign land.

Some children paddled in the waves,
all laughing in the wintry sun,
unlike those men who had to run
the gauntlet, bound for gory graves

and, as we shopped for souvenirs
in the too-sweet, twee tourist shop,
we'd all forgotten those who dropped
down dead; for them we shed no tears.

Because the weight of history
lay light upon those children's hearts,
all those brave men who played their part
were quite forgotten instantly

but then, perhaps, in years ahead
when those once-little ones have grown,
they will remember they were shown
the story of the D-day dead.