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Snow on The Line

I have a compulsion to tell strangers on trains,

My son is in Afghanistan.

A man, who sits next to me, on the way back

from Newcastle, asks how do I cope?

Swirling snow blurs the landscape.

I don’t know where we are,

At Durham I move seats to face the right way

but when I go to the toilet a youth moves my coat

and takes my seat. He’s plugged in to a war film.

I know he’s a soldier, I can read the signs.

Outside Darlington we stop for snow on the line.

I say, ‘You’re a soldier.’ ‘A Marine.’ he corrects.

Then I say it, ‘My son’s in Afghanistan.’

He looks at me, no pity in his eyes.

He’s been. It’s tough. Can’t wait to go back.

At York I move seats, I want to face the wrong way,

read all the Sunday papers held at arms length:

3 soldiers injured in a roadside bomb in Helmand.

The trains stops, we’re outside Doncaster.

Snow on the line.

Harvest

She hears on the radio a talk on the Pomegranate harvest

In Nari Saraj and in her head she sees a small boy

in a walled orchard climbing a tree,

to tap the leathery rind of each pomegranate in turn,

and if he hears that chime like a dull bell

she sees him cup the fruit either side of the calyx crown

then with a quick twist sever it from the tree

and lob it into the long grass where his older brother

waits for the catch to add to his wicker basket.

 

 

She sees soldiers skirting the perimeter

one of them could be her son, she can’t

tell, they all look the same in their desert fatigues.

They are suspicious of the soft grenades that land

with a thud and a rupture of flesh

if the small boy Is quicker than his brother.

From up in the tree she sees how the boy

can watch the soldiers with their guns.

He is not afraid of them they give him pens

and play football with him when the elders

are away in the town.

 

 

She sees that if the small boy took a careful aim

he could hit one of the tin helmets but these soldiers

same age as his brother do not deserve

His prized fruit and though she sees

he is sorely tempted they both know

That the response would be

An unseasonal rain of bullets

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