Coming through the Calthorpe Estate,
the houses are crisp and white
and resting in the greenery.
White, still and softly spoken,
they tell what having is in Georgian style
as we're bussed in to our relative invisibility.
Still, our work does have us clocked
so we might show up somewhere,
nothing much to speak of; counted.
Squirrelled away in the lusher shade of our heads
there's a faded, garish picture of a Lenten feast
going on forever, almost
as forgotten as we will be.
I do like this Colonial Theme they have on now, with the proper (perhaps even real?) botany and all. The full trappings of a farflung Empire save the compliant wogs and the big game in the Pavilion Bush. Keeping those tall drinks cool for any sudden investment occasion that might rise up -- much as, for example, a mighty Owl Shrine -- out of the slightly hazy, plastic-palm-frond- laced Power Nebula of the Future.
ReplyDeleteYou know, TC, I hadn't seen that before. The Empire's where the money came from first, I suppose. What was that Marx said about the second time around?
ReplyDeleteI wish there was some amulet to hand to keep such a future at bay.
I think it was "the second Temple is not like the first".
ReplyDeleteThat's the one.
ReplyDeleteI imagine Mr Romney's drawing up his temple plans at this very moment.
ReplyDeleteAt the tender age of ten I was taken to the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. It seemed large... and dark. Salt Lake is so saline that Jesus could have walked on it with no more than a kid-size flotation belt. It's odd how there appear miracles everywhere one looks these days. Bits of Old Burma in the West Midlands, former Presidents and Prime Ministers being called out on war crimes by Desmond Tutu. How unfair really, acts of international destabilization (I am told on good authority) can look like acts of random kindness if you simply wear your App backwards on Mondays -- and when laundering your sarong after bush verandah outings, simply squeeze out all the sweat and gin and Presto!
ReplyDelete