The Green Table

Saturday afternoon at the Green Table
where sunshine mellows a sharp chill from the east,
and it's a pot of tea, rather than a feast.
The poet asks: But when will it be our turn?
People listen but feel they're still unable
to grasp the nettle. When will they ever learn?

You'll find a micro climate, over there, somewhere.
Families discuss buying a windbreaker
and gasp at the cost of an undertaker,
avoiding revealing how much they might earn,
but openly compare standards of Au pair
as they set out the stall for when they return.

Someone is busy drying out wine glasses.
This could be England in Nineteen Thirty Eight,
The Green Table is neither early or late.
But meanwhile the Estuary Arms far away,
hosts regulars for whom time never passes
as they revel downing pints of yesterday.

Woe to be in England, in Twenty Nineteen.
This green and pleasant land that I was born in,
where sun rises in the east in the morning,
but hope sets, and the children are unable
to glimpse a future beyond those shifting screens.
The poet loads his pen at The Green Table.


Capability Red               May 2019