David Batty
The Impact of a Bomb
We were staying with friends when the bomb fell.
It did not explode then, but sat in the ground
Outside the back door, a quarter ton of death,
Waiting.
We scrambled into clothes and ran
From shelter to shelter, like mice in the rain,
All across town, between sirens'
Wailing.
We came to our own home at last in the dawn,
And slept for a while, and went on
To school, to work, the normal tone
Of being.
Two days later we saw our bomb,
Gutted, lifeless. It had done no harm,
Had died - and we had gone on
Living.
We looked at each other then, all children,
And silent began to form a rune:
That what may happen will not happen
Until tomorrow, which is almost forever
Coming.
David Batty was born and raised on the far northeast coast of England where he studied
music, literature, and languages and linguistics, including computer
languages. He has been a librarian, an information scientist, an academic;
now by preference a lexicographer devising controlled index languages for
automated information retrieval systems.
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