Would That I Be Now

Would that I be now In Hastings Gardens amidst the tall, tall trees: Silhouetting in the dark, unseen, unheard Their rustling matched by the sea swishing: Like two lovers they, they speak together And in language that they know, not I. Would that I understand. Perhaps indeed they speak amidst themselves The laws of the mass universe The laws of life of immortality of ens Perhaps Perhaps More down-to-earth they speak full lover’s words Or else make lover’s oaths: the night The sovereign witness to their plighted love. And still The trees rustle gently as they did for years And the seas as they did for centuries Laving the shores of earth full long Before this city rose, before within its walls It inbuilt the warm hearths that give the warmth Of life to us, its citizens. And still The trees rustle gently like a twilight lover And the sea seems to serenade its love Its white waves lap the night-draped shores. The bastions dream, the bastions giddying dream.