Sunday Morning, Early (Poem)

across the world bombs are falling
fire is raining down in Persia, and who knows what ends will come of it
the plain truth, now: no one ever knows or can know where war will lead, to what destruction
to what crush of empires and of women and men 

stories swallowed whole in the sunlight, only the bones spat out
to grow dry in the unshielded sun

falling into dark
like the Incas did, and also the Picts
like the Etruscans when Rome rose bloody and teeming
like the Hittites, and the Phillistines
like the great city of Carthage, tamped out as a candle flame
razed and sown in salt 

and here is our age: sliding towards disaster, run by billionaires and idiots

and, here, tucked up against the tailbone of the earth
fretting against civility, is a country
that does not seem to know its fortune

so far from bombs and battle
and, still, fractious, chafing,

and the sky looks heavy, today
grey and gloom-soaked, with rain in its face

and, here, the pigeons croon to the burdened light
still, and still, and still.