Its teeth are like those of rigor mortis.
In the gloomy, wind-chilled valley
And on the sanded city street
Is a vacancy as silent
As the bodies in no-man’s land.
My love, in the coming year
Our chances will be those of the dispossessed.We shall feed and water
But the old arrogance has gone;
And when the tribesmen shake their spears
We shall not even be able to buy them off.
Powers and dominions are awkward things
But they subject sudden death to something other than whim.When historians one day finger their books
They will mourn at the sadness of this freezing night
When the frost like mercenaries clambered on walls
And an era tightened its cloak and died.
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© December 1979