Last week, whilst staying with a friend in Falaise, I was able to  share in the commemorations of the 80^th Anniversary of the Battle of Normandy. Known locally as the  ‘Battle for the Falaise Gap.’ or ‘in military terms, the ‘Falaise pocket’. Just outside the town over 20,000 German soldiers made a final stand. On August 17^th when Falaise was fully liberated by Canadian, British and Polish troops they were able to move on to the decisive battle in the Normandy campaign.
It had taken since D Day on the 6th June to reach Falaise. By the evening of 21^st August the German army was surrounded. About 50,000 managed to escape but an estimated 50,000 were trapped. These all died. It had been a costly battle with heavy losses on the Allied side. By August 30, just a few days later, Paris was liberated and the remnants of the German Army retreated across the Seine.

Normandy Beaches.

You came as shooting stars
discharging fury from your boats,
intent on our death.
We defended land which was not ours,
uncertain of our rights,
but fear consumed us;
made us fight back.

We no longer fought for an ideology,
nor for the immortality of a band of evil despots.
We no longer cared for that,
as we showed the whites of our blinkered eyes.
We might yet win but all around us
death claimed our emptying souls.

And yet, we killed easily at first.
You were wading up mud-soggy beaches.
Your dying bodies filled with our shrapnel ,
wept blood into the earth.
And then, we too began to die,
our blood mingling with yours –
the earth  also claiming us in that moment of killing.

We stopped being enemies;
not yet friends,
but lesson-bearers certainly –
for goodness, honour, freedom, hope and peace –
dare we say, love?
United in a vital task.

Send our message to Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Gaza,
to Iran, America, China – to all the traumatized places
where they need the humility of liberation.

[GC 19^th August 2024]