Collateral Damage

U. A. Fanthorpe

The minor diplomat who brings terms for a ceasefire

Enters through a side-door, in the small hours,

Wearing a belted raincoat.

The children have become bold. At the first siren

They cried, and ran for their mothers.

Now they are worldly-wise,

They clamour（叫喊） to watch dogfights（混战） above the house,

They prefer under-the-kitchen-table to the shelter,

They play fighting games

Of reading the paper by bomblight,

Pretending to be the enemy. These children

Are no longer safe.

They have learned rash and contrary for ever. Come soon,

O minor diplomat in the belted raincoat, come

To capitulate. For the children have ack-ack nerves,

And a landmine has fallen next door.

Under the reservoir, under the wind-figured water,

Are the walls, the church, the houses,

The small human things,

That in drought rise up gaunt and dripping,

And it was once Mardale, both is and is not Mardale,

But is still there,

Like the diplomat, and the crazy fearless children

who progress through their proper stages, and the churchbells

With their nightly riddles,

And the diplomat, and the children still running

Away from shelter, into the path of the bomb.