Years to remember

Years To Remember.

The war years, she said, was a good time, people
were glad of heart and helped one another, pigs
and chickens in the back yard had many owners,
as had rabbits in hutches on the verandahs.

The man who had a rowing boat caught codfish for
the whole neighbourhood. The middle classes went
hungry too, in bigger houses; and unskilled lawyers
learned, from clients, how to steal carrots and beans

And as the war years came to an end the occupiers
soldiers starved, asked for fish to cook in exchanges
for cigarettes or a bottle of booze, no one gloated; till
peace came and each one of us had to struggle alone.