What to do with that patch of earth?
Dig in with unlaboured hands
With fingers the opposite of green?
Doom vibrant plants to early graves
In a macabre memorial garden
Of flowers dead and dying?
Toil in futility to yield only
A commemorative patch of Earth
For this reluctant gardener's outlook?

You play with your fringe
Curl it behind your ear
Oblivious to the miracle
That bought you here
A fast five years ago
"Time flies" parents often say
But I remember every day,
Not as a blur
Or through half-shut sleepy eyes,
But with high definition
And surround sound.
Yes, I remember each question asked
Each tantrum and cuddle
But most of all, each kiss on the cheek
As you slept the gentlest sleep.

“Why me? Why no normal boring ****?”
Questions you've asked all your young life.
The miraculous odds of your conception
Offset by the misfortune of love unfit:
A birth of promise ultimately deceived.

Resilience failed to blossom.
'They' know little of your chronology of pain
But still ask the 'magic wand' question
In vain hope of solutions:
Solutions for you, their problem.

You test for trust, seeking attachments.
Instead, they humour you
Treat you with kid gloves
So your adolescence is a bitter surprise:
You’re no longer the person they can infantilise.

When I see your 1940s weekend -

Your 'war was fun and cosy' pretence

Your clichéd polyester and fibre glass mockery, 

Re-enacting an imagined happy-go-lucky camaraderie -

Forgive me for not joining in

As I happen to feel it a cardinal sin

To idealise and romanticise a decade

Made up of austerity, rationing and air raids.

Believe me, I've read a little social history:

The 1940s were not idyllic or crime-free

Just as now, there were heroes and villains

Among the soldiers and the civilians.

Yes, heroism abounded but so did black marketeering

Yes, there were brave sacrifices but there was also racketeering

And those city-wide black-outs were a gift

To those who would rob and grift.

Your jolly nostalgic tribute is an annual celebration

Celebrating your own fabrication

Of a time when the machinations of war and a crazed ideology

Saw the near extinction of entire minorities.

Look, I don't wish to be a party pooper

But don't step into the shoes of a made-up trooper

So, please, remove your rose-tinted glasses

To remember that beyond your nostalgic narrative of the routines of the masses

People lived with the daily fear

Of the likely deaths of people they held dear.