Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's
Journal of Life, Literature and Love
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
