THROUGH THE COLD OF A RUSSIAN WINTER

 

Through the Cold of a Russian Winter             

Through the cold of a Russian winter

they flee the one home they have known,

dragging a case of possessions

and wearing every garment they own.

 

Deep snow impedes their sad progress,

chill winds freeze their faces and toes -

‘Where’s Daddy?’ the children cry, weeping.

Mother cuddles them – ‘God only knows.’

 

They couldn’t have stayed in wrecked houses

without heating to ward off the cold,

so they huddled in bomb-shelter basements –

the mothers, the children, the old.

 

Here in England we moan as the weather

turns from spring back to winter each day,

but we welcome the exhausted strangers –

how could we turn them away?

 

Summer will come, and autumnal rain -

Hell will freeze hard ere we trust Russia again.