# Halfway through Eternity



## JustRob (Feb 22, 2015)

In the dark of a war-torn 1945 night in London questions formed in the mind of a four month old baby rocked by a V2 rocket exploding nearby. In the dark of a peaceful night seventy years later they still do.

*Halfway through Eternity*


Where was I when the Earth was a flaming ball?
Where when the flowing lava began to cool?
Was I near when the dinosaurs stalked?
Did I hear when the great man talked?
And were you dreaming of me, my love?

Why can’t I remember?
Why can’t I recall?
Was it all so dark that
I can’t think of it at all?
...

Where was I when the missiles fell?
Born to live, not be blown to hell!
Spared to be and be loved as well,
And were you coming to me, my love?

Where will I be when my flesh is in decay?
What will I see when my night doesn’t turn to day?
Will it seem as dark as when I came the other way?
And will you still be with me, my love?


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## rcallaci (Feb 22, 2015)

This speaks about so many things- The immortality of the soul- nothingness- soul mates - and the questioning of existence all done in sixteen lines of poetry. My type of poem- Loved the 2nd stanza- A philosophical treat....


my warmest
bob


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## J.J. Maxx (Feb 22, 2015)

Rob, this is a great piece and it seems to me it could be a Dylan song or something, very touching. It makes me think of the insignificance of man. Nice job!


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## JustRob (Feb 22, 2015)

rcallaci said:


> This speaks about so many things- The immortality of the soul- nothingness- soul mates - and the questioning of existence all done in sixteen lines of poetry. My type of poem- Loved the 2nd stanza- A philosophical treat....
> 
> 
> my warmest
> bob



Bob - Thank you greatly, but I wrote seventeen lines, not counting the wordless one in the second stanza. Which one wasn't necessary?:friendly_wink:



J.J. Maxx said:


> Rob, this is a great piece and it seems to me it could be a Dylan song or something, very touching. It makes me think of the insignificance of man. Nice job!



J.J. Having seen your work I'm honoured. Thanks.


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## rcallaci (Feb 22, 2015)

oops miscounted...

warmest
bob


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## am_hammy (Feb 22, 2015)

This is a great piece of poetry.

It's a very sobering to read. Especially from the perspective of someone so tiny that no one ever considers to have thoughts. Who are we to say what little ones think of. 

Not to say that babies can think as coherently as an adult in the form of those questions, but I think if a baby truly could ask those questions, he/she would. Even more so when you can look back on traumatic events that happened, and recognize that those emotions you can remember at that very early stage of life were completely real.

Memories are an incredible and powerful aspect of the human mind.

Really liked this, a lot.


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## JustRob (Feb 22, 2015)

Thanks Hammy. That's an interesting view of the piece, that the thoughts were in the baby's mind. Well, they were but seventy years later, but that's a detail; same mind, just slow on the uptake. It is of course autobiographical and also hearsay as I was too young to remember any of the events in WWII. I didn't even really comprehend the passage of time until I was five years old, January 1950 to be precise, and as soon as I did my future wife was conceived within a couple of weeks, hence the line about her coming to me out of wherever we do when I realised that there was some urgency in the matter.


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## Nellie (Feb 22, 2015)

am_hammy said:


> It's a very sobering to read. Especially from the perspective of someone so tiny that no one ever considers to have thoughts. Who are we to say what little ones think of.
> 
> Not to say that babies can think as coherently as an adult in the form of those questions, but I think if a baby truly could ask those questions, he/she would. Even more so when you can look back on traumatic events that happened, and recognize that those emotions you can remember at that very early stage of life were completely real.
> 
> Memories are an incredible and powerful aspect of the human mind.



And these were my thoughts upon reading this poem the first time, so I had to read it again, thinking how could a 4-month old baby think such things? Who knows what a baby or toddler thinks? I know I can only remember back into my toddler-hood.

Anyway, the human mind is very powerful and sometimes it can take us places we wish we had never been. This is an inspiring poem.


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## xiaoman (Feb 22, 2015)

Very impressed, a touching piece thanks Rob I will translate it into Chinese...hope I am able to convey what you have expressed.  My grandfather was forced to join the French army in Vietnam when my mother was a toddler in 1945.


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## JustRob (Feb 22, 2015)

Nellie said:


> And these were my thoughts upon reading this poem the first time, so I had to read it again, thinking how could a 4-month old baby think such things? Who knows what a baby or toddler thinks? I know I can only remember back into my toddler-hood.
> 
> Anyway, the human mind is very powerful and sometimes it can take us places we wish we had never been. This is an inspiring poem.



Thanks Nellie. I think I confused the interpretation with the introductory text which I added hastily at the last minute. By itself I don't think the poem itself would be misleading. Silly mistake that.



xiaoman said:


> Very impressed, a touching piece thanks Rob I will translate it into Chinese...hope I am able to convey what you have expressed.  My grandfather was forced to join the French army in Vietnam when my mother was a toddler in 1945.



Thanks Xiaoman. My father had the opposite problem. He was forced _not _to join the army, allegedly on medical grounds, but I suspect that it may have been because his own father was foreign and had German ancestors. My father was disappointed that he couldn't defend his country but became the local air raid warden and kept us civilians safe at home instead. No doubt he was one of the people who helped deal with the consequences of that rocket hitting the houses at the end of our road. There were many people killed and injured that night but not our family. Now is an appropriate time to be thinking about our ancestors of course.

In my writing I always try to let the reader see what they prefer to in it and in this case the reference to the "great man" is intentionally vague. There have been many great men and it is up to the reader to choose their own. That is a concept which translates into any language or culture. If it is a religious reference then I myself have faith but do not profess to follow any specific religion, so no assumptions can be made as to the thoughts in my mind when I wrote it. Indeed blind faith is based on ignorance, which is what this poem is all about. Whoever the great man was I wasn't there to hear him in person.


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