For D. T.

Now billowing the blue skies sails unfurl on the world:
The young women come-hithering, blithering, withering
The young men unmothering, othering, wuthering;
All gait without weight, all great by the somehow’d thing
The luckless life passed by in senseless winning. And these
Unrobed emperors dance across the globe, proof of worth
Of subordinates’ words and the names of their murderers.
So many noble deaths in the deep. So many pale horses ridden by;
Unshaken bones in the unstirring graves there still sodden lie.
This my fate; this too yours. Insanity to those who remember or forget.
In such straits only the blind harbour hope – with searchlight-white eyes
Like angels descending at dusk, like dry necks strung with pearls,
Sole sensors of the truth in the over-bright glaucous-blue world.