Article in Stretton Focus, November 2017
A recipe for War
Take 500 teaspoons of marinated hatred.
Heat for several years.
Fill 2 cups to the brim with ignorance.
Mix with 50 spoons of anger.
Stir in thoroughly
Take 75 grams of secrecy,
Sprinkle liberally over a cup of fresh revenge.
Add 60 cups of sorrow lightly cooked and mix in some selfish actions.
Take 17 salty grenades each with a crispy bullet and mix.
Blend in 25 kilograms of pure greed melted in with some nuclear weapons.
Mix all of these ingredients together thoroughly,
Place in the microwave and wait.
Mixture quickly explodes causing death, sorrow and eternal pain.
This poem was written by one of my pupils, 15 years ago when I was teaching in the local primary school. The theme is one which has always been in the minds of the young. Yet adults, especially politicians, have failed to allay their fears. The l9l4-18 war was said to be the ‘war to end all wars’ and yet it was the beginning of another 100 years of conflict worldwide during which religions/faiths have been unable to exert any meaningful influence. Jesus’ message, similarly to other faiths, was of loving your fellow men, and yet the conflicts continue, with no end in sight, mostly targeting the very old, young and vulnerable. Think of Syria, Yemen, Nigeria and others where children are experiencing and witnessing unspeakable suffering.
But life goes on; so also does the pain of cherished memories for loved ones no wreaths at cenotaphs can wipe away.
Such pomp and circumstance is hard to bear,
When you are staring at an empty chair.
Conflicts will be seen to run their course,
War soon sputtering to an untimely end.
All parties claim a hollow victory won.
Yet nothing will have changed, nothing can be said
To heal the grieving and the mourning for the dead.
(Taken from a poem I wrote in 2011 whilst watching the repatriation of servicemen’s coffins through the town of Royal Wootton Bassett).
David Hill
