Boat Song

Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,

‘Onward’, the seekers cry;

Speed, you will not, but sink like a stone

Down on the seabed lie.

‘We once had a country’, the desperate cry

‘Now we’re officially dead’.

The Ministers grin, ‘You cannot come in.

You’d consume all our daily bread’.

The debris of massacres, blitzkriegs and bombings,

Putsches and pogroms, war’s goings and comings.

Tyres are for burning and cobbles for throwing,

Army surplus for wearing and weeds fit for mowing.

Lie in military tents with fear gripping breath,

Forget that you’re living, expecting a death.

Remote ideologies send bonnie boats

Like broken-winged birds to our merciful votes.

And we turned them away, yes, we turned them away

As we went out to play

In our dead-hearted country, the bounteous place

Where neighbourly love puts a smile on each face.

As we golf and we gamble, eat, make love and die,

Raise shrines to our roadkill, release a brief sigh—

Only heaven knows why—and for hours upon hours

We bring photos and candles and

Mountains of flowers upon flowers upon

Flowers upon flowers

Fay Zwicky