Dispatches for the Colonial Office: If We Have to Evacuate Tonight

Wednesday, March 25, 2026

Lawrence Hall

If We Have to Evacuate Tonight

If we have to evacuate tonight

Take to the roads in fear of an enemy

Take to the shelter in fear of bombs

What book would you stuff into your jump-bag?

(Along with your Tylenol, toothbrush, and cat)

The Oxford Book of English Verse for me -

Tho’ I would miss Mary Oliver and Pasternak

Hammarskjold, Li Bai, Cavafy, and Cohen

Akhmatova and vain Yevtushenko

(What book for you among your socks and thoughts?)

But all of us with our own cultures’ poets

In some new land beyond faraway hills

We will plant our verse and grow bright daffodils

Dispatches for the Colonial Office