SAY, IS THERE BEAUTY YET TO FIND?

('Hear the cool lapse of hours pass,
Until the centuries blend and blur'

Rupert Brooke
"The Old Vicarage, Grantchester")

*

the day
had been
tethered to the past

as if it had
refused to move out
of the other century

it had languished in
an Edwardian feel
to everything as if

the clock had stopped
at 10 to 3
and it was time

for tea
perpetually
honey dripping from a spoon

a game of cricket
with good old chaps
splendid in blinding whites

before a War
stopped play
"Howzat!"

the ghost of
other days
"Not out!"

before a red Jag
cruises past
towing the modern age

into its proper position
establishing
the present moment

as the only
time
there is

a radio
somewhere playing
"Ahhhhh.  . .

it's all over
now
baby blue!"