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
