In times of peace and good government
there is increase of fruits and ease.
The house-spider tries to spin her web
from the air-raid helmet to the gun
in the closet, but quits at the sound
of the morning vacuum-cleaner: the sound
father keeps his weapons clean but locked away.
The afternoon is broad. The evening
is for supper and nothing. At night the ex-
soldier can wake from honey-hearted sleep
and turn to his own wife in his own
bed for a change, for solace against fears
of death by normal attrition. At 6 A.M.
there are no police knocking: his only problems,
besides the major ones of love, work, and death,
are noisy children: playing out in the street
before breakfast and against his rules, a joke
occurs, and their laughter starts, builds,
and then goes up like a prayer against the rules
and for the time of peace and good government
in which it happens: they could have lit
a used Christmas tree: it goes up in fire
but burns invisibly in the clear morning air
while roaring. Then he goes to work again,
instead of war, and the day stands as said.
Free Variation on a Translation from Greek
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