Once I was asked to write a piece about the “Merry Month of May”. I was less than interested in this theme as it seemed to be a bit of a cliché. So I looked it up and found that it has been the subject of many forms of art. As a schoolgirl I remember dancing around the maypole, a pagan dance of fertility, and hopes for a good growing season and harvest.

It is the title of a poem by the 16th century poet Thomas Dekker,

It is the title of the Regimental March of the 10th Royal Hussars .

It is a movie produced in 1955 and it’s a novel written by James Jones in 1971.

Not to forget the Irish folk song sung by The Dubliners.

So I thought that many, much more talented, famous and generally brilliant folks had written on this theme, so who was I to consider it beneath me. My poem a little different and focussing on the fact that I was born on VE Day the 8th May 1945, and was reared on stories of war and bloodshed, of victory, never of defeat.

My childhood was taken up with games of war with my brother, who convinced me that the pile of old batteries which had been dumped in the dell at the bottom of our garden were all undetonated bombs. Just waiting to go off, if I didn’t adhere strictly to the rules of his games. My desire to be part of his boy’s world, and being two years younger than he, I agreed with no reluctance.

With this as a backdrop here it is. The Merry Month of May:

The house sits in sunshine,
Listens to the drone of bees,
Sees the wasps as they nestle into fruit
Soft and rotting on the grass.
The old oak tree with a swing made of wood,
Looks out to where the old elm sends
It’s suckers shooting up all around
Letting nothing grow upon the ground.
The house is empty and forlorn,
These many months alone it sits.
The ones who stayed here gone away,
In the Merry Month of May.

The house sits in darkness
Listens to the drone of planes
Sees the flash of anti aircraft guns
Fighting for freedom in the air.
A blue eyed boy blond hair on his brow drops his bomb
By mistake.
Wishes he could turn around and never harm another soul.
Wonders who lives below and wonders how
He came to be the pilot with no voice
A killer who never had the choice.
The choice was made by those with maps far away
In the Merry Month of May

The house sits among its trees,
Listens to the soft thud
As the bomb settles in the mud.
Below the oak under the swing it slides and settles.
It stays and hides beneath the nettles.
Four years pass
The war has ended all are dancing in the streets,
Drinking homemade wine and beer, this is the end of all their fear.
Now all they need is loved ones far away to come home come home to stay.
In the Merry Month of May.

So the old house still sits.
Children come to play on the swing they
Play house in the grass, cutting sticks to build their forts
Playing at war, running up and down until one stops and
Sees the shiny object beneath the trees.
She stoops and strokes it, clearing off the dust it shines.
How beautiful it looks,
She calls her brother to come and see.

The house is still here on this summer day.
It has been alone for a long time now.
A new family is coming so they say
And as the darkness falls all around
It will never forget that sound.
When mothers kneeled to pray
In the Merry Month of May.