BOMBERS GOING OUT THIS evening is so still The after-sunset
glow Is almost tangible Like a fifth element ; The valky seems to fill With visible air ; I stand On the floor of a clear pool.
Black and malevolent.
I watch the bombers climb Spiralling, gaining height, Up, up, as if there were A surface to burst through Into another Time : Earthbound, I see them go Into the neutral night. There is nothing I can do.
But it is as if my heart, My body, mind, and soul, Were stretching straining taut Between us like a rope. The strands cry out and part One after one till nothing Nothing is left but thought And the landing light of hope.
In the dark I go to bed, But still the horizon round Rings with their note that cracks My glass escape : and they Will some of them be dead When with the morning light Under the sky, earthbound, We wake to another day.
PATRIC DICKINSON.
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