hungry poodle

I consider myself a fairly savvy poetry buff, having been raised by a mother who recited poems at the drop of a hat and who taught us that poetry is the highest form of human communication.  So I was surprised when I read the following poem in the news this morning; it was recited yesterday during Chelsea Clinton’s marriage to Mark Mezvinsky, and I had never heard it before. It was so touchingly beautiful that I did a bit of research on it and was amazed at its provenance. My mother would have loved this.

Here’s the story: the poem was written during World War II by Leo Marks, an English cryptographer. Marks was in charge of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a British unit that provided secret agents with codes and cyphers so that they could safely send information to London.

At first the SOE encoded famous, well-known poems because they were easy for the agents to memorize, but Marks discovered that if the Germans recognized the poems they could easily decipher them. Thus he began writing original poems and encoding them, making it impossible, in pre-computer days, for the Germans to break the codes.

Marks wrote this poem (in memory of his girlfriend who had died in an airplane crash), encoded it and gave it to SOE agent Violette Szabo before she embarked on a mission to France. Violette was captured, tortured and executed by the Germans. She was 23 years old.

I’ve got some favorite love poems, but this one excels in its brevity, simplicity and especially in its tragic, true backstory. I can’t imagine reciting it at a wedding with dry eyes.

SOE Agent Violette Szabo

The Life That I Have

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause

For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours
And yours

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