Westerners  
 

 

we ferried our past across here

our furniture    our favourite things

the familiar parts of our life

 

we reconstructed them to make

ourselves an opulent future

and barricade oblivion

 

you will recognise us among

these everlasting earth-treasures

in a gold mask    or in black granite

 

in the clean slot of a hieroglyphic

though you thought we were dead and strange

you will recognise us    we are

 

still here   we are the westerners

 

 

Poem prefacing the GUIDE TO THE POETS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR