No Return

A poem by Phil Coates

We will not return,

Not to visit friends who called,

“How are you?” from the upstairs window.

The window is gone.

We will not return,

Not to listen out for the children,

Running home from school.

The school is gone.

We will not go back to work,

Not where the bulldozer has been:

Not one book, tool or machine,

All of it gone.

The hospital where we left them

Is lost under mounds of rubble:

A forgotten, ancient barrow.

We will not trouble.

Where our shattered selves should go,

We will be shunned, cursed with bad luck.

Shame will hide us. We will be no-one.

You know, we can never go back.

When an old tree falls,

There is new light and new land:

Many other things can grow.

Even here it is true

But nothing of ours,

Nothing we know.

You will listen to a face on a screen,

Telling you the importance of the day

But don’t have time for…

That poetry has to say.

You might watch the destruction in disbelief

Or avoid the painful views just for relief:

Will poetry contain your grief?