Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
A Ghost Road Through the Marsh
The days are gone
When the kingdoms of
earth flourished in glory;
-“The Seafarer”, Burton Raffel translation
Water ran in rivulets among the weeds
The wind was lowering, the rain had stopped, the sky
Was low and grey over a landscape bleak
With wreckage and windfall from the passing storm
An old man slowly worked to clear the road
While the young impatiently hooted and honked
Their displeasure that the world they hadn’t worked
Wasn’t working quite right for them today
The old man sometimes spoke with the ghosts of Rome
Who had built and marched their roads until
The egos and angerings of emperors and kings
Abandoned all good work to slow decay
The young one-fingered past him among the brome
And disappeared forever into the gloam
