Another Time

For us like any other fugitive,

Like the numberless flowers that cannot

And all the beasts that need not remember,

It is today in which we live.

So many try to say Not Now,

So many have forgotten

To say I Am, and would

Lost, if they could, in history.

Bowing, for instance, with such old-world

To a proper flag in a proper place,

Muttering like ancients as they stump

Of Mine and His or Ours and Theirs.

Just as if time were what they used to

When it was gifted with possession still,

Just as if they were

In no more wishing to belong.

No wonder then so many die of grief,

So many are so lonely as they die;

No one has yet believed or liked a lie,

Another time has other lives to live.