The battle of El Alamein was one of the major
turning points in WWII. Here’s my take on it, and how
my father turned to poetry to deal with war.
OCTOBER 1942
El Alamein –
the place
where poetry 
became need
beyond want
a way to put gunfire –
bombs minefields
sand drilling flesh –
into order
a way to find respite
in a glimpse of magnolias –
moonlight on a sandbag wall
it was
the place of knowing
that only men who fought
at Alamein
would mark the map
with sand and yellow moon
we who come later
find lilies
and buried poems
from ‘A Summer Father’ published by Frontenac House, 2006.
