Then Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

Then
Will you pine at the red dusk as you
Did yesterday with those jet-black eyes?
- Asked I


I will see, said she, what I feel then.

Ah! Woman how you distribute
Your emotions as by interlude
A play, scenes, acts, go by.


In the declining sun of yesterday
I saw three children play
About the same age were they
And laughed and laughed and laughed
As from school away
They rolled over the darkling green
And wondered with wide eyes at
The moon’s growing sheen
At the popping night-stars they
In the declining day of yesterday.

2011
The year has come: a month ago
My heart trembled at each hour
That the new year came nearer:
Now what was exceptional is
Become routine:
So life, so history move,
Ruthless, mechanical, and clinical.


In the dark night of years and centuries
Down in to the sump of ages
And of gravities
Saw I the planets circulating
And yet
The sun danced strangely side to side
Coming back where it started from
What distance covered on one side
To the other went; neutral and as
Unmoving went, though ever-moving was.

And so the Voice of the Poet-Seer went:
The rays of the then scorching sun bent
Themselves to the sea and to grounds
Below where vast the long horizon abounds:
In the declining day of yesterday.