This day has lost its meaning,
This day is just a day
On which to take the children
Somewhere else to play.
The trees are not in leaf;
Gaunt arms are stretched out wide;
The climbing boys can laugh
As though no one had died.
The girls in party dresses
Admire a game of catch:
The motor-cyclist passes
To picnic on the beach.
Your car - a chance for polish;
The garden might be raked;
And is not now the moment
To see the rose-bush staked?
But strange this peace, this silence.
A quietness seems to clash
Against the world with violence.
And some will still eat fish.
- Dunstan Thompson