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Now and Then
Loved England,
green land skeletal with dead elms and beeches
(beautiful girl with anorexia),
the will to flourish perished in men and women.
How have we come to this?
Or have we?
In part a myth, surely—not all but partly—
and true though much of it is, need that be final?
Green trees flourish unstricken. Some recover
from anorexia, and shine.
Sink into
the seedy role, laudator temporis acti?
No. Bad trouble, but even our sick polutions
of earth and water and air may be contained,
may yield a possible future.
Open-ended
our future lies. That is the future’s nature.
It is not necessary, it is not honest
to prophesy to a full stop. Ours the open
grace of a question mark.