'Lying flat in the bracken...'

Here's one for Father's Day, tangentially. A loose, joyful almost-sonnet, written by Gavin Ewart, sixty years ago this month...June 1966Lying flat in the bracken of Richmond Parkwhile the legs and voices of my children passseeking, seeking: I remember how on the13th of June of that simmering 1940I was conscripted into the East Surreys,and, more than a quarter of a centuryago, when France had fallen,we practised concealment in this very bracken.The burnt stalks pricked through my denims.Hitler is now one of the antiques of History,I lurk like a monster in my hiding place.He didn't get me. If there were a Godit would be only polite to thank him.