Because We Can
This sensation We say is the nation Acting its destiny.
How like is it To the smaller act which here we see, The incomplete Devil paying a visit?
We know it is our Fate to lack power Is this our excuse That we are very small Among demagogues whose job is to choose The Few’s good or the Good of All?
Perhaps at home Thought might roam In rhyme’s paradigm From native spite In bed or drawing room to Real Time Downloaded to us day and night.
Should then we ask To whom the task? There have been, we know, Unflinching souls Who’ve travelled far as thought can go: Why is the world dying between the Poles?
Nobody today, At least down our way, Slaves in mines Or starves or freezes, Yet each Old Baron in his Saturnines, In the Market’s name, does as he pleases.
Oh, come off it — It’s only Profit, One of our boasts, Free Will for Man!
We bitumen the fields and flood the coasts Because we must because we can.
Peter Porter
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