Greenham Common

‘“All that happened when he was eight. He’s older now and knows better.”

“Children of Hyacinth’s temperament don’t know better as they grow older; they merely know more.”’ Saki

… of Hyacinth’s temperament. Just such a child

mankind appears: of knowledge insatiate,

secret on unwrapped secret greedily piled.

But knowing better? Hardly a trace of that.

Impossible Hyacinth, though, was a child yet,

and man’s an infant still in earth’s life-span.

If he doesn’t burn the house and himself in it

might he mature into a wiser man?

Feminist, reading this, do not resent

the unacceptable words ‘mankind’, ‘man’, ‘he’.

I use them in this instance advisedly,

hoping faintly that mankind’s temperament

might now find itself worked by womankind

towards a better-knowing humankind.