To the Boys Who Fought the Battle of Britain

Young airmen billeted in Grandma’s house
looking out over fields and distant woods,
playing tennis in the evening shadows,
waiting for the final bugle call.

At night they’d sit playing cribbage,
talking of the girls they’d left behind,
of the pubs they had frequented,
of friends, now ghosts in unknown graves.

At twilight, they’d watch from the garden,
enemy bombers flying in darkening skies.
Dog fights overhead with stars shining,
a parachute drifting into misty countryside.

By Saturdays the number had dwindled,
shot down in Belgium or the Pas- de- Calais,
lost in the drifting sands of the Channel,
burnt to ashes, brief comets, shining bright.

Grandma cooked for them with love,
they laughed at Grandad’s ancient jokes,
his stubborn support of Left-wing views.
his devotion to the weekly football pools.

These were ‘the few’ who took off into alien skies.
who flew for the last time into the morning sun,
Last memories of golden fields of wheat,
of drinking warm beer in the fading light.

By: Sarah Das Gupta

Sarah Das Gupta is a poet from Cambridge, UK, who also taught in India and Tanzania. She began writing at age 80 after a disabling accident that limited her mobility. Her work has been published in over 25 countries in both magazines and anthologies. She has been nominated for Best of the Net and for a Dwarf Star Award.