Aftermath Of An Election Poem by C Richard Miles

That day, dank drizzle drifted,
Insinuating itself wearily
Upon still-sleeping city streets,
Which begrudged grey globs of gum
Discarded on pallid paving-stones.

Skies, scowling, sagged
And tugged away
At any sign of cheerfulness,
Till it was quenched, consumed
In dismal drudgery and humdrum.

Even the dull breeze soughed
Apathetically, without the strength
To raise the sodden fallen leaves
And this was London’s morning
On that sour November day.

But, on another facet
Of that rough-cut stone
We call our planet earth,
The jeweller revealed sheen
Where burnished black would rival
And outshine dull white.

There, across the seas,
Was no glum despondency
Of sickly autumn smog
But outbursting of unbridled joy
As new histories awakened
In an optimistic dawn.

And in the years to come
Which memory will last:
The plodding slouch to work,
Or visions brought across
By satellite to hail the sunrise
Of a changed America?