Would That I Be Now Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

Would that I be now
In Hastings Gardens amidst the tall, tall trees:
Silhouetting in the dark, unseen, unheard
Their rustling matched by the sea swishing:
Like two lovers they, they speak together
And in language that they know, not I.

Would that I understand.
Perhaps indeed they speak amidst themselves
The laws of the mass universe
The laws of life of immortality of ens


Perhaps
Perhaps
More down-to-earth they speak full lover’s words
Or else make lover’s oaths: the night
The sovereign witness to their plighted love.

And still
The trees rustle gently as they did for years
And the seas as they did for centuries
Laving the shores of earth full long
Before this city rose, before within its walls
It inbuilt the warm hearths that give the warmth
Of life to us, its citizens.

And still
The trees rustle gently like a twilight lover
And the sea seems to serenade its love
Its white waves lap the night-draped shores.

The bastions dream, the bastions giddying dream.