Carol Macfie Lange
I knew it, too late
As I leaned on the gate,
the guns were upon us
with violence and hate.
The planes were all leaving
to cries of NO, WAIT!
Crowds surging and heaving
running and weaving
to alter the path of their fate,
clinging and begging
kicking and crying,
humanity sighing,
some of them bleeding,
arms aloft, pleading,
and hope swiftly dying.
I kissed the soft skin
of my small frightened girl
And whispered, “I love you
and you’re going to fly,
with heaven above you
safe earth down below
And your Mama will follow
wherever you go”.
I met the wide eyes of the soldier
who stood on the gate’s other side,
just a boy like my son, not much older.
Without any time to decide
I threw her up high, high and over,
he caught her and held her so close,
kissed her sweet head and consoled her
and she looked like the heart of a rose.
He looked down and smiled
at my little girl-child.
“We’ll save her,” he said, and covered her head.
“Please tell me her name, also yours.”
I shouted the names, they were lost in the winds,
winds of fear and of planes flying high.
I gripped the black bars of the shuddering gate
And knew that my child would not die.
*Photo by SL Granum
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Forty-Three Newsletter • Number 509 • September 2021
Oxford Friends Meeting
43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW