Martin Robertson

Now and Then

Against Pedestals
for Jody

Our idols fall.  Not that their feet are clay

—their feet are ivory, their hair is gold,

all we believed is true, except the old

pretence that they were gods.  We have to know

God, if there be a god, cannot be so.

The handsome plinths we built for them were all

plaster painted for marble.  These gave way

and gold and ivory shatter in the fall.