WAR Poem by Rutger Kopland

Whereas the story goes that it has been told
and finished with - but it breaks off

oh yes, I've been told it, told it
and yet

I see that grey, well-thumbed photograph
but again the grass is still greener than grass
and the blossom still whiter than blossom

in that grey garden it must have been war
in that man, that woman, that child
in that grey grass under that grey blossoming tree

I've been told and told how they had had
to disappear from there, be carried of,
in goods trains, never come back

whereas the story goes that it has been told
and finished with - but it breaks off

oh. yes, I've been told and told
how peace returned

but there is still no other photograph but this
in which it has yet to happen