Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
As You Sometimes Remind Me…
One day I'll suddenly recall:
The sun exists!
-Pasternak, “About These Poems”1
When the world focuses on a sheet of paper
In a little room where hopes have come to die
The pen can’t write out a prescription for life
Or limn the remedies for a fallen world
We begin our days as did Pasternak
A cup of tea against the fear, the fear
Unsure of the conflicting daily edicts
The babblings about ballrooms, tariffs, and arrests
Pasternak opened a window to light and fair
And to the children playing in the snow he cried,
“My dears, what century is it outside?”
1Translations vary
