Looking back,
Nella Last
I think the regret about the fruit salad
was stronger than fear of all being over.
All the day, the tinkle of glass
being swept up and dumped in ash-bins
like wind-bells in a temple,
together with the knock-knock
as anything handy was tacked
in place over gaping windows.
I look at a tin of fruit longingly,
now that fruit is so scarce.
Little sparrows had died as they crouched.
It looked as if they had bent
their little heads in prayer.
Not one falleth that He does not see.
Poles, Czechs, Greeks, all sparrows.
I’ve opened the tin of fruit salad,
and put my best embroidered cloth on,
and made an egg-whip instead of cream.
I’ll not take my clothes off tonight.
I’ll give the animals an aspirin.
(from Nella Last’s World War II diary, 1941)
Verbatim Poetry 