The Departure of the Myths

 Here is another poem by Dick Davis – and why not? He's one of the best (and still living). This one is a rare excursion into something very like free verse, and I think it works beautifully. 

The Departure of the Myths

Now that the series of
Tottering bedizened
Edifices goes toppling
And tinkling into
The distance, surrounded
By singers and saltimbanques,
By outriders who curvet
Their horses and flourish
Bright, fabulous weapons –
We cannot deny that 
The silence is (as
They grinningly warned us
It would be) unnerving. 

But almost immediately
It's broken; a child
Is wailing somewhere – 
And look, there it is
Grubby and rubbing its eyes,
About five years old,
Of indeterminate 
Sex, left behind by
The glamorous, vanishing
Self-absorbed caravan that
Now, as we watch, grows small
In the sunset.
                      Suddenly
We see how ridiculously
Heedlessly cruel
That gross splendour had become –
How could it have touched us?
We hate it and rush
To console the distraught
Child who stubbornly
Evades our caresses and
Bawls for its mother. 


[Saltimbanques are travelling entertainers, jugglers, dancers and the like]