Children Of War & Displacement

June 2019

#126

Introduction to this months challenge ‘Children of War and Displacement’

Jan Hedger, who runs Words'n'pics Open Writers (known as WOW) is co-ordinating a ‘display of writings’ to mark Refugee Week (17th - 23rd June) and 100 years of the founding of Save the Children by Ellesmere born Eglantyne Jebb.

There will be contributions from WOW, Chirk Writers Circle and invited guest poets and will include Poems, Short Stories and both Fictional & True Accounts’. With a diverse mix of work, across countries and generations, suitable for all ages, including children to read and be inspired by.

We go to Afghanistan, Vietnam, Dublin, Spain and India... There are pieces of reflection, humanity, asking questions, lost strapless sandals and ‘The Old Majolica Bowl’.

The introduction to ‘The Spanish Civil War by Joyce Benham;

‘This is this is the story of my father, a renowned surgeon, who passed away recently at the age of 92. The task of sorting his desk came to me as his daughter. I knew my father had to flee Spain during the Civil War, but although I felt there was a story to tell, it was not something he ever talked to me about. Having burned all documents and paperwork too private and personal to read, I have one last simple, flimsy notepad and written on the cover in pencil is his name ‘Xavier Sanchez Garcia, aged 10 – My Diary 1937’. I will read only the more important and relevant excerpts...’

WOW and Chirk Writers Circle are a mix of experienced and new writers who are community based and both meet monthly for workshops, sharing written work and socialisation.

Led by Jan, both groups exhibited fictional ‘letters of WW1’ for The Wilfred Owen Festival in Oswestry last November. Which led Jan to be invited to be involved in this year’s Ellesmere’s ‘Refugee Week’.

Guest poets are Maureen Weldon, Paul Beech and Kemal Houghton (all acclaimed members of Chester Poets) alongside Cheshire novelist, playwright and poet Maureen Holbrook, whose two Great Grandparents came from Ellesmere.

'Partition of a Homeland' a poem for three voices, by Wolverhampton based poet Kuli Kohli will also be on display. Kuli recently delivered a talk on Partition of India and the thoughts behind this poem at The Qube in Oswestry.

The display is at 'Our Space' Ellesmere Library.

Family At War

I’ll write you a letter
You know I will
You are in my heart
You were from the start
The war is upon us
We cannot prevent this
Our children must be safe
They must go to the country
I shall miss them
But they will enjoy-
The world about them
Instead of bombed places
That we will have to be
With ambulances,
Death and destruction
Oh, my love, be safe
For our love must stay
Intact
For our children , now
And for the future...

Dedicated To The 54,000 Victims Of The Hell Holes Of The Detention Centers Of North America

On this Monday of June the 24th of 2019, as the raven carries our blessings.

Walking down toward the National Mall, with some grass, the trees, and the mud that surrounds us, it is not a nostalgia, but a pilgrimage, within the circle of the grounds where Resurrection City once stood.

To the ancestors and the unsung heroes who were my sisters and brothers. And the Reverend Annie Chambers, a comrade-in-arms. We were everyday people with our heart and sole. We were beautiful poor people guided with love, fighting as a moral force for the right to live.

As the richest country in the world, the poor were the most affected by the lack of food, jobs, income, education, and justice. And the walls of US apartheid under the mass of a negative narrative. Oh, love has a hold on me. Five thousand people that was my stone love. In a rich man’s heaven but living in misery that Dr. Martin Luther King in his own words, that we got one thing in common: we all are poor and we must stick together as the Poor People’s Campaign.

Marching down the streets of Washington, DC, lifting our voices of the voiceless and nonviolent revolution to demand our humanity as human beings. We are not invisible again and ain’t nobody’s gonna turn us around no more. No Uncle Tom and no stoolpigeon no more.

We were a rainbow of nations. If the sun would stand still, spring will open a hearing on Capitol Hill. One more morning of pursuing freedom, justice, and equality. It was only five weeks after Martin Luther King was assassinated in the Spring of 1968. From all corners of America we gathered on May 13th of ’68. We first got the blessings from the people of Turtle Island to build our tepees. We all came from different experiences but we were citizens of Resurrection City. But, baby, the rain came down. But it was our heart of our soul, our very sweet home. And after a long day of marching and demanding, we would have some dinner and sit down and listen to music and dance of Aretha Franklin of “Respect,” James Brown with “I’m Black and I’m Proud,” “The King of Love is Dead” by Nina Simone, and “We Are Ordinary People” by Sly and The Family Stone.

It is our solidarity with each other. We were strong. We were proud. And we were defiant. But on June the 24th of 1968, the ravana waited for that moment to invade and strike with billy clubs, tear gas and bulldozers. And burning our homes. And a mass arrest of 300 people, many who were injured. Mothers, children, seniors, and men were dragged. Violence and its high holy order. War against innocent poor people. The destruction of Resurrection City – we suffered jail and torture.

And now after 51 years later, I walk to this ground and stood for a moment of silence, with tears within my soul. Of an old song of Barbara Lewis, “Hello Stranger,” it’s been a mighty, mighty long time. Shoo-wop, shoo-wop my baby.

War → Displacement → War On Children → More Displacement

A crying child in a concentration camp cage
Flowers for a child who has experienced fire
Fire in the eyes awake enough to listen

Escape war – become displaced
Become displaced – enter another war
Escape this war? Displaced … again?

A devil can never be a clown
Another child has been martyred
The spectre of 400 Tlatelolco massacres rises
Is this a Soweto moment?

We want flowers – no more funerals!
After Amiri Baraka’s Atlantic “railroad made of human bones”
There is a spur emerging in the deserts of stolen lands

Por que …

¿Por qué? Porque …

¡PORQUERÍA!

(porqué)

Roars In Defence

At the back of the queue,
Hoping for rice and milk powder,
But they don’t bring greens
Or the local milk bank over
In the ocean liner,
Though they could.

If she could stow away in a crate,
She could breathe through the slats
Like a spider with bananas.
She’s very small and agile –
Actually she’s big and clumsy.
Still, no one would know
Till after they docked.

Avoid refrigerated containers,
They’d been warned,
Cross this ocean of explosion,
But beneath another moon,
Where the yellow smog smudges
The stars,
Where the moon is ghostly,
Mocking the light of innocents,
And street-wise harpies.

Over here where people drink
And roar with glee.
Where they drink such a lot
They fall over, they black out.

There’s a tiny space in a room.
Clients come to pay for her passage,
And the chance of enough money
Held back from extra tips
From extra tricks to escape
The daily humiliation
The shocking price
She’s been made to pay.

But there’d be the hope of rescue,
Hope of welcome,
Roars in defence, in gentleness,
With respect and modesty restored:
A car to drive, lots of hair-dos,
Pilates, transcendental meds…

©Gail Campbell

Seeds

All of us seeds blown here by the storm wind,
flown up in the birdsong
and nuzzled by beasts.

All of us seeds packed into envelopes,
wrapped-up in brown paper,
shipped in packing cases.

All of us seeds erupt in strange gardens,
thrust up from the dull earth,
reaching out for the light.

All of us seeds resounding in splendour,
diverse in the warm sun
we dance beneath the rain.

All of us seeds: the world’s jangled children
tumbled through the grey clouds,
let us grow on and on.

Refugee

“One does not ask of one who suffers: What is your country and what is your religion? One merely says: You suffer; that is enough for me.” - Louis Pasteur

I had no choice. What else could I have done?
Death falling without warning from the skies;
a life in fear of cannon, bomb and gun,
the night-times fractured by our children’s cries.
Death falling without warning from the skies;
our eldest saw her playmates killed and maimed;
the night-times fractured by our children’s cries;
our home destroyed; young women raped and shamed.

Our eldest saw her playmates killed and maimed.
We can no longer live where we belong,
our home destroyed; young women raped and shamed.
Can seeking peace and safety be so wrong?

We can no longer live where we belong.
No-one foresaw a crisis on this scale.
Can seeking peace and safety be so wrong?
You may not like my face, my faith, my veil.

No-one foresaw a crisis on this scale.
We fled in fear from cannon, bomb and gun.
You may not like my face, my faith, my veil.
I ask again. What else could I have done?

‘Refugee’ won the quarterly award for the best poem in the Spring 2016 issue of ‘The Lyric’ and was subsequently published in my collection ‘Perhaps One Day’ 2017

Jenni Wyn Hyatt
WOW Guest Poet

Over Here

See that fellow over there
eastern dress
long dark hair;
the one sitting cross-legged
on the ground,
quite a crowd
are gathering round.

Some say he’s a refugee
begging in the street
he’s got a bowl and blanket
nothing on his feet,
and quite a crowd
are gathering round.

There’s more folk now,
where are the police?
They should be here
and quite a crowd
are gathering round
there’s no room here,
not for him;
for him
for Him...?

©Margaret Holbrook
Guest Poet - WOW

Who Cares?

Sandalled child
unkempt hair
all alone
no one cares

travels oceans
seas and roads
only life ever known
all alone
no one cares

shunned, abused
though young, learns fast
all of life in
one small bag,
who cares?

walks strange streets
looks for hope
begs for food
for warmth, for love,
who cares?

downcast eyes
upward glance
who will give
this child a chance?
show you care,
show you care.

©Margaret Holbrook April 2019
Guest Poet - WOW

On The Back Of A Ticket

On the back of a ticket
Reserving a cabin

A very comfortable cabin
On a boat
Where we ate
Two eggs and bacon and toast
Followed by coffee
Then we slept
On a bed with a quilt and a pillow
While we sailed from England to France

I put down a memory of my journey
With thoughts of others

Crammed in tight
On a boat
With first class berth
Two hips wide
No food
No drink
Ticket purveyors
Denying all responsibility

The price of my journey?
About thirty pounds
The price of their journey?
Family fortunes, worse
Often life

The price to their broken nations?

They have many more problems
Than to calculate this price
And continue to bleed their best hopes into the ocean?

The price to the world?

I can only hear it sigh
With grief
and despair

Jennifer Brough - (2016, updated 2019)
WOW

Dublin 1942-1945

When life is quiet
and the night is mine,
flashbacks come floating.

Me in my pushchair.
Walks in My Own Natural Park
(this was Dalky near Dun Laoghaire).

Or Bewley’s Café,
where coloured windows shone,
and elegant ladies, and ice creams.

Journeys in the tram
sitting on my mother’s knee;
going, going … and puffer trains.

My grandfather’s greenhouse
of tomatoes with their lovely smell,
and wallflowers … and the day he died.

Then the end of the war,
bells ringing, boats booing,
trains and trams hooting,
people clapping, people calling.

My father coming home
proud soldier, lovely man.
I hated him… because he slept
in her bed –

did not know him,
who became
my best friend.

Now I dance in the circles
of those rich beginnings
like trees that dance in the wind.

Included in her Collection, ‘To Change These Hours’ Kite Modern Poetry Series

Maureen Weldon- Guest Poet WOW

The Empty City

No City, just rubble.
Soldiers in black play hide-and-seek,
We are East, West, North, South, they shout.

So we packed him away, our precious boy,
our precious child; packed him away
for a better life in a better place.

No city, just rubble.
and me an old lady, a widow wrapped in weeds,
wrapped in tears.

Daughter, daughter sit by my side.
‘Where are they mother?’
Walking, walking. Gone, all gone.

Published Summer 2016 by Lifejacket. Proceeds for Liverpool refugees.

Maureen Weldon

The Old Majolica Bowl

She’s just a little girl, my love.
She cannot speak nor even cry,
so terrible have been
the things she’s seen
in her faraway ravaged land,
the land she has fled in fear.
But she’s just a little girl like you.

No mummy, daddy or granny anymore
because of the war,
she lives in a muddy camp across the Channel.

All she has left is an old Italian bowl,
the gloriously coloured majolica bowl
that always stood in a shaft of light,
lemons, limes and apples piled bright.
It’s a miracle it wasn’t destroyed by the bomb.
Pity anyone who’d steal it now
for this little girl can be fierce.

She paints like you, my love,
but uses more red than blue,
much more red than you.
She cannot speak but paints in red.

In her cold camp bed
she clutches her bowl,
the old majolica fruit bowl.
Miracles do happen,
and cross the Channel she will someday
to a happy life in our country.
Kind people to care for her
and a little girl who will be her friend,
a friend who’ll help her find her voice again.
So she believes.

A little girl like you, my love.

Children Of War; In A Foreign Land

Children of war, caught like stupefied rabbits, with shards of light piercing the
night blackness; as if the stars had fallen from the sky and deserted the moon;
that divided their innocence, into waking and sleeping, playing and dreaming.
A beating and once welcome sun, now only highlights scenes of annihilation.

Sheets ripped into shreds, once crumpled around tangled unblemished limbs; a meagre veil of comfort
in the sticky heat of a hate filled summer’s night; are now just bandages, and stopgap tourniquets
for bloodied and splintered bone.
Children of war, bare considerable pain, with trusting eyes which cry no tears.

Children of war, slumber in confined tented villages of roughened canvas,
usurped from the secure solidity of construction, by exploding mortar shells and flying broken plaster,
which caked their hair and clogged their nostrils.
Patchwork Teddies, stitched and worn, lie in the crook of matchstick arms.

Rough-hewed bowls, hover at fingertip stretch, accepting of a ladle of sustenance, which will barely fill an empty belly that
writhes in agony, tormented by the foreign invaders, microscopically small and breeding.
Children of war, dip jugs into polluted rivers, to satisfy a longing thirst.

Children of war, in worn-thin plimsolls, drag blistered feet, gripping onto a mother; whose arms are now too burdened to carry them, as she did before; a fractured family skirting the craters on loose graveled roads
leading to exile.
Fathers long gone, buried deep in the fight, burn in their hearts and minds.

Will they ever forget? Will they ever forgive? Will they strive for peace; or will they harbour hate? Will they become ambassadors, or will they gravitate towards martyrdom? What will happen to these innocents? Guilty of no crime.
For children of war, grow into adults, and how the balance tips is up to us all.

Jan Hedger
WOW

Flotsam” Or “Jetsam”

“I`m only a lonely Vietnamese
Set adrift on the China Seas.

Crammed into a rotten, open boat,
All I own is one old coat.
Sharks, pirates, thirst and heat,
No money, no home, nothing to eat.
Leaving a tyrant, nowhere to go,
You don`t want me, You say no!
You say no room, no food, no space,
Anyway I`m from a different race.
Left to rot on a rubbish heap,
Who cares? Human life is only cheap.
What would you do if you were me,
An unwanted person adrift on the sea.

For I`m only a lonely Vietnamese,
Lost unwanted on the China Seas.”

Eileen Wiggins
Chirk Writers Circle

Land Forgotten

We flee our homes
possessions stuffed in ragged bag.
We flee our land
dust bowel of ashes.
We flee our country
all that is known to us.

The road ahead long
hunched bodies trail its way
empty eyes look to the ground.
Shoeless footprints indented in dust;
child's single sandal
straps torn away discarded.
Babies strapped to mothers backs.

Cruelty and greed;
men hiding in shadows
take our money
promise of a new land.
Cast off into open sea
water up to the gunnels
crowded boats sink low and lower.
Prayers are said,
fate in the hands of God.

Pauline Faulkner
WOW

My Name Is Jamal

My name is Jamal. I am eight years old, nearly. I live in Aleppo in Syria; with my brother Hassan, who is four and my baby sister, Amira who is almost one. My mama and papa are called Yara and Samir, but I don’t know how old they are.

We used to have a very happy life, but not now. I went to school and my teachers said I was clever and be able to be a doctor or a scientist when I grew up. I wanted to be a footballer or a spaceman, but now I am not sure. I haven’t been to school for nearly a year. The school was bombed, luckily it was a Saturday, so nobody was hurt, but our school was destroyed and is now just a huge pile of rubble. I try to continue with my study at home, but find it hard on my own. I don’t think I’ll be a doctor or a scientist now. My brother has never been to school. I try to teach him his letters but he just wants to play, so I have given up.

We don’t even go out much now. Mama says it’s too dangerous. Once a week we go to the market, but there’s not much to buy anymore, so we just buy what we can. Mama says we are very lucky to have anything as a lot of people have nothing at all and we mustn’t complain. When we went to market last week there was a big explosion and I saw dead bodies on the street. Mama tells us to look away but I can’t help to stare. They just lie there, some with legs and arms missing and there’s always lots of blood, that the flies land on and get stuck in. My brother laughs at the bodies, he thinks they are playing like in his games. I tell him, they are dead and dead is forever but he just laughs even more and runs around the house with his pretend gun shouting, rat a tat, rat a tat – you’re dead.

My mama is so sad. She used to laugh, but I can’t remember when I heard her laugh last. My papa helps to dig the graves for all the dead bodies and every day he looks older, and more tired. The lines on his face get deeper and deeper. Sometimes when I walk into the room it goes really quiet and they turn round and smile at me, but I see my mama’s tears and papa’s worry. The baby is not well but there’s no doctor to see her because they are all so busy. It’s all awful. I shut my eyes and pray that things will go back to how they were and we will go to school, play outside and all laugh together.

Something is happening. When I go to bed, I hear strange voices in the house, lots of whispering. I ask mama and papa what’s going on? For a long time they say it’s nothing to worry about. But I am worried. I have heard of children being sent away, who never see their parents again, I am really, really worried. The other night, I went downstairs and pleaded with them not to send me away. They said they had something very important to tell me, but I mustn’t tell my brother because he’s to little. My papa explained that we were going to live somewhere else, not in Syria but in another country. I will go to school every day and have a lovely place to live. There will be no more bombs or dead bodies on the streets and plenty of food. It will be wonderful! I was so excited.

Sometime later I was woken by my papa – quickly, quickly, it’s time to go. Get dressed. I dressed and ate my food at the same time, to excited to sit down. Our new life was about to begin. My brother cried as he was taken from his bed. I helped him dress and told him we were going on an adventure – we would be super heroes. Wrapped up against the night’s chill we left the house and were bundled into an already overcrowded van. Nobody said very much. I wondered why there was no happy laughter after all wasn’t we heading for such a special place – a whole new life. I couldn’t stop smiling. My brother and sister soon fell back asleep but I couldn’t, there was too much to look forward to.

The journey in the van seemed to go on and on and it was very dark, so I didn’t know where we were. The van stopped, everybody got out to relieve themselves and then we were hurried onto another waiting mini bus. The men shouted without raising their voices – ‘hurry, hurry come on, come on’. I settled on my papa’s lap squashed on the back seat. I was very tired and fell into a deep sleep. I don’t know how long it was before the voices were waking us again. The sky was beginning to lighten. ‘Are we there yet?’ I asked my papa ‘where’s our new house and my school?’ ‘Not yet my son, be patient, it won’t be long my little super hero.’ He stroked my head as went back to sleep – his first born, his wonderful Jamal.

Another stop. I could hear water – we were at the beach. ‘Hurry, hurry – get in.’ In my papa’s arms we got into a small boat. I was scared – where were the life vests? My mama had told me about the boat and said there will be life vests, so we wouldn’t drown. There were none. The sea was as black as the night had been and deep, really deep. The boat swayed side to side, as more people got in. It dipped down, only to be thrown back up by the wild sea. I thought I would be thrown overboard and eaten by a huge whale. People fell to one side making the boat roll and tip even more. There were too many people!. We were all crammed together, slipping and falling on the wet cold rubber of the boat.

Within minutes I was soaked and clod, shivering with fright. The boat journey went on and on, people were sick, people were crying. Mama kept hold of baby Amira, who had stopped crying some time ago and now just lay quiet and still in my mama’s arms – no energy even to scream for milk. My little brother lay white and shivering against my papa’s side. The crying stopped, the boat was silent, only the sound of the sea lapping the sides, then spraying over us, as the waves became bigger and bigger. The noise grew louder – whistling and droning. The waves grew bigger and we were thrown from side to side, covered in sick and each others fear. The bang!

The boat leapt into the air. I opened my eyes. Where was I? Salt water poured into my mouth and nose – I couldn’t breathe – something hit me in the face. A silent moment, then I was being pulled up – out of the water. I gulped in the air as I hit the surface. I don’t know how I feel at this moment. I don’t understand wha t is happening. I am being carried by someone I don’t know, my clothes being stripped off me and a blanket wrapped around me. The man is tender, caring. I ask for my mama, my papa. He doesn’t answer. I spend days; I don’t know how many; just sleeping and crying. The kind man comes in and out with fresh clothes and hot drinks. Then I get up and am taken out into the bright sunshine, blinking while my eyes adjust. He helps me along, steers me into another boat. I am leaving. My bothers brightly coloured jumper sticking out from under one of the covers.

They had all drowned; my family.

I found no magic land – no super heroes.

I had escaped war only to be delivered into a war I faced alone.

Jane Daley
WOW

Run

We were walking home from school along the winding dusty road. We had taken off our shoes and hung them around our necks by the laces that we had tied together as we loved to feel the warm sand between our toes. My friend and I were singing happy traditional songs, as we walked, for our teachers had told us that we had been chosen to dance in the Spring festival. We would lead the lines dressed in traditional costume with our hair colourfully beaded. I could not wait to get home and tell my mother; she would be so proud.

When we reached the bend in the road, where the big shade tree grew, we could see people running and shouting “run, run”. What was wrong? Why were they all running? My friend stopped one of the villagers and asked, “Why are you all running, what is wrong?”

“Do not waste time. You must run with us to the forest and hide. Men have come with guns, shooting people and burning the village. We must all get away and hide in the forest so that they will not find us, or we will be killed as well.”

“But I must go and find my mother and my sisters,” I answered. “I can not run and leave them here as they will be in danger too,” I said.

“No, you cannot go there, or you will be killed. Come with us and hide until the danger passes.”

So, my friend and I, our enjoyment of the good news banished, turned and ran with the villagers deep into the forest to hide from the danger that was at home.

I am exhausted. My feet will not walk another step but if I stop and they come again they will kill me. I haven`t eaten for three days and I am so thirsty. If only my mother was here. I don`t know where she has gone since the men came and the shooting started. Since we had all run away and hidden in the forest to hide from the fighters. The people said that when they came, they burned our village. My home, where I had lived with my family, has gone and I do not know if my mother and sisters and alive. How can I find out where they are? I dare not go and look as they might catch me and then I will be dead too.

Annona, my friend from school, is hiding with me and she said that her cousin Shona has gone to try and find water. All the streams have dried up as we were waiting for the rainy season and there is no water to be had. We have eaten a few berries and leaves, but we are so hungry as there is no food where we are hiding, and we could not face the danger to bring any food with us. At night it is very cold, and we huddle together to try and keep warm but when we ran, we could not bring blankets as there was no time.

Will I ever see my mother again? Where can I go if I cannot go back? Where can I get some food? Oh God, somebody help me.

Eileen Wiggins
Chirk Writers Circle

Sweets In My Pocket

The mission today is to go into town
An exercise in PR; they call it
Whilst I live in fear of losing my legs

One doesn’t share that of course
Part of a soldier’s dress code
Is the wearing of a confident smile

No sooner had we jumped from the truck
Than they were there; the children
My forced smile relaxes a little now

Tousled, dark-haired children;
The innocents; wanting only security
And the sweets from our pockets

Clinging to my roughened combats
Jabbering away; no pause for breath
Clamouring for individual attention

A few English words; intermixed
With their own foreign tongue
They learn fast, these children of war

But I am not their teacher.

Jan Hedger
WOW

The Spanish Civil Wa
– A Refugee from Guernica

This is this is the story of my father, a renowned surgeon, who passed away recently at the age of 92. The task of sorting his desk came to me as his daughter. I knew my father had to flee Spain during the Civil War, but although I felt there was a story to tell, it was not something he ever talked to me about. Having burned all documents and paperwork too private and personal to read, I have one last simple, flimsy notepad and written on the cover in pencil is his name ‘Xavier Sanchez Garcia, aged 10 – My Diary 1937’. I will read only the more important and relevant excerpts.

January 1st 1937 - Navidad (Christmas) is over, but it was not a happy time. General Franco’s Nationalists started a war last summer, by rebelling in Morocco. Papa says it is a Civil War because we are not fighting any other country. In Madrid, President Azaña is Republican, a Communist. He is leading the rest of the army on the other side. I don’t know which side I am on, but Franco says he is a religious crusade. I go to Iglesia de la Santa Maria regularly to confess my sins – like when I hid my sister Luiza’ spinning top – do does this mean I am a Nationalist? Papa says it is wrong to pick sides. We are Basques and our president is Signor Aquirre and his government is in Vitoria, our capital, s perhaps we are not involved and fighting will not come to Guernica. I hope not. there is fighting in lots of cities now; and last October – they even fought in the streets of Madrid. My friend Pablo says there have been terrible things done and people have died in the fighting – even women and children. Mama says we are not to worry, it is all far away in the south and will soon be over. But when they think we are not looking, she and Papa talk in whispers and their faces are sad. Our neighbours are the same. People do not laugh anymore.

March 26th – Fighting is geting closer. Pablo told me there is a very big battle. The war has crossed the Guadaljara River and people are fleeing north, away from the fighting. I am sure I can hear guns. My big brother Juan says it is still far away, and what I am hearing is doors banging and trees blowing in the wind, but at night I lie in bed and listen. Down below me under the floorboards, even the animals are restless. I hear them moving about. The cows low and gurgle as they chew the cud and the donkey stamps and brays. My school friends are very excited. The argue who is right and then they fight and shout – ‘I am a Nationalist. You are Republican.’ Papa says they are too young understand and to be taking sides. We are all people and should not be fighting each other. He says lots of brave soldiers have died. Strangers go through town carrying their belongings in carts and prams. They are refugees. They look tired and lost, but they don’t stop as they pass through on the road to Bilbao. We have lost a lot of hens and several sheep. Papa thinks soldiers or starving people have stolen them.

March 28th - Uncle Miguel came yesterday to see Papa. The war has now come to our area of Biscaya and Cantabria. He told Papa, Franco has blockaded and mined all the ports including Santander, Bilbao and Lekeitito. I am very scared now.

April 26th – It was the most terrible day for Guernica. It was Monday, the day the market is always held on the plaza, and when we meet all our friends. Papa drove us in our cart down from the mountain. Mama sat beside him and we children were in the cart. We crossed the Oka River and made our way to the market place. But there was not much buying and selling, even though the town was crowded. Lots of people were refugees looking for food, but the market stalls had very little to sell. Field crops have been trampled or stolen by fighting soldiers and a lot of our friends have left for safety in Bilbao. By afternoon Mama had sold all the eggs and the few special herb chorizo that people used to queue ages to buy. At 4. 30 pm I saw her haggling for candles on the other side of the plaza. Sebastian and Luiza were with her, hoping she might find some chocolate coated figs. They are too young to understand why there have not been any for months. Terese had gone to look for scented herb soap. Juan and another boy went off to play pelota against a factory wall down the calle. I knew Papa, would be sitting under the Guernica Oak. That tree is hundreds of years old, the place where local elders of the town used to sit and discuss new laws. Today he and three other men were silently playing cards, but their faces were grim and lined.

There were no jocular taunts of cheating. It was as I walked towards the church that I heard a distant, dull, heavy thud. I stood still and listened. Then it came again, but much closer. Everybody seemed to stop what they were doing and look up at the sky. Then we all saw aeroplanes coming from the direction of the river. ‘They’re German! Franco is bombing us’ a man shouted. People then began to run in panic. For three hours the planes bombed and machine gunned our beautiful town. People screamed as phosphorous burned their flesh. Market stalls were hurled and smashed as lethal bombs rained down. Buildings crumbled and fell in showe rs of masonry, wood and glass. In the livestock market, terrified animals squealed high pitched wails as they were hit and died. There were bodies everywhere. I ran to find Papa, but he was no longer by the oak. Then uncle Miguel found me and told me not to go to the other side of the plaza. He said Papa had found Mama and the little ones and they had all died together, near where the candle stall used to be.

May 26th – Uncle Miguel took me to Bilbao a few days ago. Children under the age of 12 were to be evacuated to England. We sailed on a ship called Habana. There were 4000 of us, together with teachers and helpers. The sea was rough in the Bay of Biscay, but we arrived safely and were taken to a field full of tents. Slowly we were all assigned to live a British family. I am now a refugee. I don’t know what happened to by brother Juan or my sister Terese. When we docked a lady from ‘Save the Children’ said I must keep praying and not lose hope. I will go home when the war stops and look for them.

My father was sent to live on a farm where, after school he helped with the animals. He learned English, did very well in school and went on to study medicine. He didn’t manage to go back to Spain until 1960. In Guernica, Vitoria and Madrid he searched archive records of the Civil War, but found no trace of either his brother or sister. Like so many other citizens of Guernica on that April day, the vanished forever amid the destruction.

Joyce Benham
WOW

“And What In The World Is Happening”

She spoke to herself often, the same sentence repeated.
Smoke was still thick in the sky as it wrestled with the rays of the sun.
The guns were quiet, no blasts no shouting no grenades, but the quiet hour would not last and the family were unprepared for what happened next.
Mother had made a meagre breakfast for her and her three children from what they had retrieved from the last surviving hotel, father had been taken away a year ago to fight for the cause, they said.
They sat silently together on their bed, a mattress covered over with an old counterpane, sometimes they cried, and slept holding on to each other as if this was their last hope of life.
Then the blast...unexpected, but expected, and the whole world changed for one little boy aged three.
A bomb went off in what they regarded their living room, and the little boy ran out over the debris of stones and sand, how did he make it that far from the others? No one knew, he was only three; perhaps the blast threw his small body headlong to the outside of the house, but there he was; crying and looking back into the rubble calling out for his ‘Mamma’.
Then a hand reached out to him, and lifted his limp body away from the devastation, she carried him to another destroyed building and placed him on the concrete step then left him there alone, and she moved away.
He called out Mamma, stretched out his arms to her but the figure kept going.
The little boy was alone, the tears streamed down his blood red cheeks, he was panting in between catching his breath, he could not stop the tears, but no one noticed him, his trousers were wet with urine his jacket was damp and dusty from the sand and the tears, he rubbed his eyes until they were sore.
Where was she, Mamma? Where was his baby brother? And his big sister, the one that took care of him while Mamma was out of the house, they were not there, - there was no house.
A man came towards him and offered him a drink, the child reached out to him for comfort, but the man did not want to comfort him...he just wanted him. He led him away from the fray and the farceur.
But just then his sister appeared covered in blood and scars and took his hand from the man that desired the child.
‘Mamma’ he cried and fell into her arms.
Later that day they were picked up and taken to a place of refuge, the hand that had picked him up from the rubble smiled at him, she was a nurse. They were safe.

Margaret Baldock
Chirk Writers group

We Are The Borrowers

We come into the world with nothing,
And we go out the same way,
But what we achieve, and the way that we live,
Is left for the others to say.

Let’s respect all our human companions,
All creatures and plant life too,
Don’t fall to judging your fellows,
And may they never judge you.

Their frailties are all in the balance,
Look on them as we look on our own,
Let us share our good luck and fair fortune,
For we don’t own the world...it’s on loan!

We come into the world with nothing,
To a world which is torn by despair,
Let us give and not take and learn to forsake,
The riches we all need to share!

Vivian Ball
Chirk Writers Circle

Artwork by John Joseph Sheehy

Children Of War

Displacement force out
War tear's family roots
Children orphaned
War brings tears
Children Uprooted from their communities
The terror of war brings deviants
Deviates environment long after years years
Centuries
Damage mental distress
Homelessness homeland security taken away
Maimed deaths grief losses sadness
Transfused Trauma Traumatised

John Joseph Sheehy

Alan Kurdi

The Photograph
- Remembering Alan Kurdi

I saw the picture that should have made the whole world cry.

But it did not.

It splintered facebook into jagged shards of opinion.

Anger
Sorrow
Us and Them
Ours and Theirs
Do Somethings
Do Nothings
Do Mores
Do Lesses
Petitions
Collections
Blames and Shames
Likes and Shares
Comments on Comments on Comments

Emotions unleashed in all directions
Donations flood in,
From those who have the least to share.
They both know and feel the need.

Others grimly hanging on
To what they have
Waiting for the axe to fall
The next sanction to bite

The desperation of others
Enrages them.
Reminds them.
It lies in wait for them
Just outside the door
Waiting to sweep them away too.

We are all of us standing on that beach.
And we shouldn't throw stones
The tide is on the turn
Soon nothing will look the same

I saw the picture that should have made the whole world cry.

But it has not.

Not yet, not yet.

Ashley Jordan
GROW

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Children Of War & Displacement

June 2019