Empire of the Sun

Poetry

Photo by British Library on Unsplash

The best of us fell on the Somme, Verdun, Passchendaele,
Our luckier cousins long ago set off across the broad Atlantic.
Convicts moved straight to the antipodes
To the Swan River of Western Australia
Convict scum of the East End born to live again.
The ragged Scots, after Culloden,
So many Irish everywhere in the Empire,
The Raj spice and opium settlements in Shanghai,
Every mountain climbed
All oceans crossed.

Now only the scrag-ends remain
Whenever I see a death date,
Say 1989, I think in 1986 she had three years
Left to live
Except, in this case, he was born and died in 1985.
His blue-blue eyes.
Make me think of the Aztecs
Silky, gossamer, filmy wind-borne seed floating by
High, high, so very, very high, in the Andes.

Disguise worse than lies
Hear the grass grow, the squirrel’s heart beat
Die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence
Soon, my lady very soon: if you please.