Lest we fashion ourselves
in artificial joy,
we must sing to this world;
the poet’s envoy.
In these days so heavy,
In these days without cure,
we forget the homeless
asleep on the moor.
They’re asleep in our wake,
they’re asleep to the hiss
of advertised pleasure,
manufactured bliss
And forget not the old,
with those faces of fault lines,
so haplessly devoid,
like the old coal mines.
They live in their shadow,
they live within their past,
this world on which they’ve learnt
that nothing’s built to last.
No notebooks in the drawer,
Nor diaries of old,
The story’s in the sale,
Not from what is told.
So, before we get lost
In day-to-day routines,
Let us piece together
What life really means:
The faded word of print,
A sugared ring of wine,
Favourable melody,
Endless stretch of brine.
The winter’s passing rain,
And August’s fatal heat,
The swaying of the tyre swing
Where lovers care to meet.
And we will return to
Our places in the skies,
Where life is lived in centuries
Devoid of all goodbyes.
We’ll weep not in longing,
We’ll weep not in our haste,
For losses felt yesterday,
For all that’s laid to waste.
Upon the explosion
Of all these dying stars,
We’ll rejoice in the so-near’s
So much as the so-far’s.
We will live out our dreams
upon that foreign shore,
and sing out to our lives,
‘till we breathe no more
