Michael Pruchnicki - SCHOOLBOYS IN 1939

Once I saw a black & white photo
taken by a Japanese tourist
of London schoolboys
walking briskly to grammar school.

No planes over London yet,
although German troops were blitzing
through Poland that September afternoon,
and Warsaw schoolboys were
running pellmell to bomb shelters,
Jew and Christian alike.

Grainy photos taken on Polish soil
by news photographers
were of victims dead and dying.
The photo of English schoolboys
was of victims yet to be!

Michael Pruchnicki

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/schoolboys-in-1939/