MEMORIES OF ENGLAND

So, having tackled most of Churchill’s History,

Surfed the net for tickets and a book,

Hopped a jet and, spellbound by the mystery

Of dynasty and tomb, gulped with a look

The English weather with its burly clouds,

The Tower, Saint Paul’s, which swallowed us and shook,

And the overflowing Thames, bridged by crowds,

We’d had enough. Such a long list of dates,

Stamped like bills to pay, while here the dust shrouds

An unfriendly square where a bus-queue waits,

And there, scaffolding clatters up the skies,

And farther still, pressed under smoke-gray plates,

A yellow manuscript tilts at your eyes

With pencil lines that make you want to rub.

If any memories haunt us, they arise

From a stray evening wasted in a pub,

Away from where a million tourists massed:

Our pints had shallowed — the rush and hubbub

Lifted like fog — when England shone at last,

Engrained in the oak, like a root of good

That held the light and always would hold fast.

Or somehow we imagined that it would.