War
There are too many moments
that we forget
that there is a war
that bombs and shells
and the dead fall
elsewhere.
My son asks
if he will be put on a train
if he will be sent to a camp
if he will have to wear a star
and leave us
I say to him no
not today
not yet
not us.
About this poem
This poem was included in Best Scottish Poems 2023. Best Scottish Poems is an online publication, consisting of 20 poems chosen by a different editor each year, with comments by the editor and poets. It provides a personal overview of a year of Scottish poetry. The editor for 2023 was Aoife Lyall.
Editor’s Comments:
This poem is devastating in its simple portrayal of how we forget, have to forget, the travesties and tragedies happening in other parts of the world in order to function in our daily lives “There are too many moments / that we forget / that there is a war”. It is the innocence of a wary child that brings home how utterly fragile and precarious our place in the world is: how we never really how valuable our lives, or deaths, are to other governments, or our own. It is the caveat “not yet” that urges caution, that hangs in the reader’s thoughts long after the poem has been read.
Author’s Comments:
I am delighted that this wee poem (the shortest I’ve ever written I think) will appear in Best Scottish Poems 2023. Thank you to The Scottish Poetry Library and to editor Aoife Lyall for selecting it.
It was written in response to my son asking questions about things he was learning at school and seeing in the news related to conflict and concentration camps. Raising children in a world ravaged by hypocrisy and greed where civilian lives seem to be valued differently simply by accident of birth, I’m still trying to cultivate a sense of optimism for my son and daughter but it can be a challenge.
My son fills me with hope – I’m certain that his clear sense of justice, advocacy and goodness, and that of his peers – will prevail and they will be better at building the kind of world we all want to live in. But for now, I’m grateful to live in peace and mindful of those who face harrowing and heartbreaking experiences every day whilst simply trying to survive.
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Julie McNeill
Julie is a poet, editor and community worker who has made Glasgow her home, after travelling north from Carlisle in 1998. She has a Masters in Creative Writing from the Open University.