‘CHILDREN PLAYING ON OMAHA BEACH’: David Seymour

The war is two years over. The tide is out,

and the beach clear of detritus except

for part of an upended landing stage,

like a leviathan’s jaw, in a pool.

Beside it there are four small children,

who are playing the serious, absorbing games

the very young play with wet, fugitive sand.

The photographer, whose parents were murdered

by the Nazis, was killed by machine gun fire

near the Suez Canal. He photographed

Ingrid Bergman with a dove, and Picasso

with ‘Guernica’; covered the Spanish

Civil War, and the founding of Israel.