To live is to be conscious
At dusk of the spilled blood
That went to the making of the wild sky,

Dyeing the immaculate ricers
In all their courses.
It is to be aware,

Above the noisy tractor
And hum of the machine
Of strife in the strung woods,

Vibrant with sped arrows.
You cannot live in the present,
There is the language,

The soft consonants
Strange to the ear.
There are cries in the dark at night

As owls answer the moon,
And thick ambush of shadows,
Hushed at the field's corners.

There is no present,
And no future;
There is only the past,

Brittle with relics,
Wind-bitten towers and castles
With sham ghosts;

Mouldering quarries;
And an impotent people,
Sick with inbreeding,

Worrying the carcase of an old song.