POW CAMP 57…

…was built on downland beside the golf course

and below detached houses in their own grounds

to house Italians from North Africa

and then, post war, Germans for ‘re-education’,

and, finally, before demolition in

the late ‘50s, homeless British families.

 

A kestrel hovers above the cow parsley.

It stoops, as always unexpectedly,

then rises with a field mouse in its talons

and flies to an oak tree to feed and rest.

In the distance are the towers of Woking

and beyond, in haze, the metropolis.

 

Our granddaughter is oblivious,

scooting on the small, empty car park –

too young and innocent for epiphanies.

 

 

 

cow parsleydemolitiondetached housesdownlandepiphaniesfield mouseGermansgolf course.homeless British familiesinnocentItalianskestrelmetropolisNorth Africaoak treeobliviouspost warWokingyoung‘re-education’