London, 1941

Lonely now this unreal city of

desperate hopes and slow insidious

will to continue living, and broken the pavement

where our young desires went courting.

Low and determined the voices, like rain

on the splintered window, heavy as these

iron shutters the faces of those seeking

an end to the chain, the vision.

For those the strong, the powerful, not

realizing as yet their power, and also

for these, the impotent, let mastery be given

and the will to act, that out

of this, the indescribable, treading

the path of promises, hope shall fuse,

resolve spring as ears to reaper, sharper

than this, fertile as those.