Thread: Laurie Lee
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Unread 11-05-2009, 12:31 PM
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Steve Bucknell Steve Bucknell is offline
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I like this poem by Laurie Lee, found in The Oxford Book Of Short Poems 1987, edited by P.J.Kavanagh and James Michie. It is as relevant and shocking now as it was then:

Invasion Summer.

This evening, the heather,
the unsecretive cuckoo
and butterflies in their disorder,
not a word of war as we lie
our mouths in a hot nest
and the flowers advancing.

Does a hill defend itself,
does a river run to earth
to hide its quaint neutrality?
A boy is shot with England in his brain,
but she lies brazen yet beneath the sun,
she has no honour and she has no fear.
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