Passage

This is a poem comprising two stories and for two voices. One line is a personal account of my mother's life and the next line is a factual account of London in wartime. The lines are interspliced.

In the aftermath of air-raids, accumulated debris
She came from the valleys
Would be suspended in the London air for hours
There were no jobs in Wales only the pits
And then would slowly descend
At the age of fourteen, she packed a bag
Covering people in a fine white ash
Said goodbye to her aunt and left for the city.
After a raid there would be an eerie silence;
Ten years later we were at war.
There was no traffic since the streets were blocked by fallen buildings
She earned a living in London, met a soldier and married
And hardly any pedestrians, only a pall of smoke
But late on.
And an acrid smell of burning.
The child, a sickly sliver was born on September 18
In 1940 London was bombed every night from 7 September to 2 November.
The father died soon after of natural causes.

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