Decline and Fall

Shadows left to sink in the ashes and dust

The best of us fell on the Somme, Verdun,

Dunkirk, Burma, Malaya, North Africa

Our luckier cousins had long ago set off

Across the broad Atlantic: convicts moved

Straight to the Swan River of Western Australia

Convict scum of the East End born to live again.

The ragged Scots, after Culloden and the clearances;

So many Irish everywhere, across the Empire

The Raj with its spice and opium settlements

Trading in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka

Every mountain climbed, every plant classified,

All oceans crossed, all risks taken, all corners cut.

Now only us, genetically damaged scrag-ends, remain

Blue-blue eyes, that make me think of the Byzantines:

Occasional, silky, gossamer, filmy, wind-borne seeds still float by

High, high, so very, very high, over in the mountains.

Here, I hear the grass grow,

Listen to the squirrel’s heart beat,

And then die of that roar

Which lies, deep in the heart,

On the other side of silence.