A Letter from my Grandchildren

• A Letter from my Grandchildren

A Letter from my Grandchildren

It must have been strange when you were young
We've seen the pictures and we've read about it
For the sake of some sludge in the ground
All the bombs and the guns
And the clouds rained with blood
Were you scared, Grandma?

What was it like in those days?
We try and try to comprehend
For the sake of the color of someone's skin
The walls and the wire and the churches on fire
Were you there, Grandma?

Children of my children
I am the lucky one
To have found you in a better world
Than I have come from
But, children, keep asking questions
For there never was a day
When history wasn't trying to make
The same mistakes

We've read about The Great Decline
Where you saw forests fall and oceans rise
And angry old men in their towers high
Buy and burn, and burn and buy all a man could buy
Till he ran out of time

It must have been sad in his time
For the sake of a face pressed into coins
For the sake of some imaginary lines in the sea
There washed onto shores all those lost girls and boys
Not much younger than we

Children of my children
I never felt so strong
Than to know you ask this of me
Of a world we've not passed on
But, children, keep asking questions
For I never knew a day
When history wasn't trying to make
The same mistakes

Alternate versions:

A Letter from my Grandchildren (with Celine Yap)

© Brendan Bonsack
October 2015

1. That Line in the Sea
2. Your Child has the Heart of a Poet
3. Maralinga Blue
4. Life Insurance
5. Future First Mutual Life Insurance
6. Fallout Flowers
7. Closing Time
8. Grace
9. Will You Take me Down to the River?
10. Intimacy and the Tiny Drum
11. Old Lovers
12. A Letter from my Grandchildren
13. Remembrance

The Sea Will Take it From Here
Released June 2016