FATHERS

Your generation was the first to audit

The value of the shift from there to here;

Checking back you found the sky had changed

The Milky Way fades as you go north,

The constellations no longer gleam.

You saw under the grey the barren hills

And judged the old people made no mistake

To swap the northern for the southern sky.

“They change their sky and not their soul

“Who fly across the sea”, the poet said;

But souls are plastic, edges rub off,

And context encourages a search for comfort.

Yet I hear your whisper: change is not enough!

That new beginning eluded your efforts.

What you did naturally our

Management consultants now call

Continuous Quality Improvement;

You saw the need for something more,

Not the spark of a religious conversion only

But the slow burn of a revolution

To a new society as the earth turned

Under their keels as they sailed south.

29/08/02

Frank's musings