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Philip Wilson

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Chaplain, Sixth Army

Franz Meyer has lost both arms.  He screamed
a lot before morphine and I wrote the letter
that seemed appropriate, and signed it
‘Your eternally loving Franz’.   His wife
will keep this and I have done my duty.

There were children hanging by the railway yesterday.
Partisan activity, so we are told, begins young
and I would have blessed the bodies
but was assured of their Jewishness.
Food is in good supply, more morphine has come in.

My breviary gets filthy and sometimes forgotten.
I miss offices and pray for forgiveness.
There are so many letters to write:
for those with no arms, no legs, no mind.
My fingers ache.  I hear confession at call.

At night I think back to my first Mass in Cologne,
placing the host on my mother’s tongue
one thousand miles from here.  It’s hard to sleep.
Rockets howl and partisan children die slowly.
I long for Heaven.
                            Your eternally loving Hans.

Page(s) 47

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