poetry iii

one shaft of sunlight
is enough to wake,
one pound of flour
is enough to bake,
one piece of pie
for hunger's sake,
one unheld cry
in sadness' wake,
one silver coin
in wildfruit cake,
one fickle madness
to refute a fake,
one envied bliss
does smiles shake,
one dizzy mess

must courage take.

--Iain

Futility

Move him into the sun -

Gently its touch awoke him once,

At home, whispering of fields unsown.

Always it woke him, even in France,

Until this morning and this snow.

If anything might rouse him now

The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds -

Woke once the clays of a cold star.

Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides

Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?

Was it for this the clay grew tall?

- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil

To break earth's sleep at all?

--Wilfred Owen