The princess in sandals
Watched from high the great bazaar.
The last Palace that still stood
That survived the Hindustan war.
No cloud but one broke the silken sky
From which a great gleam bored;
A mighty sound, the heavens roar,
A metal bird did soar...

Shock and screeching chalk
etched itself more memories.
The princess saw from up on high
The metal bird decline.
In haste we ride, ride to beat the tide,
but lest she not neglect,
Her temperament and Royal reference,
and not omit her kindliness.
Step in, in slippers, to the shaded sheets,
In gilded glory peeps
four straddled stalls striding high;
Their equivalent copper hover fly.

This sight had not been seen; the royal court dismayed,
The flying bird was not alive but dead as boulder valley,
From which clinked out, like bugs, a line of faces similar but dissimilarly designed.
Some stories told that they were travellers from heavens farther way.
The future is not desperate but desperately In decay, plagued by fires in futures present of dust and soot and plague.

Perhaps if inclined they stayed, swayed a while in palm like grace, then maybe,
Maybe then, we could collide our past and future pace.


05/04/20