Page 2 - Poems Vol 1

PINK DIAMONDS FROM BOGOTÁ

The pink diamonds from Bogotá lay in the dirt,

Where the children had found them.

They had not worn much,

Only rounded by their own intransigence.

But the children were gone.

Left their everlasting toys to the royal mercy of the wind,
To the silent, shivering sun.

And the track, the winding, dusty track,
Along which the children had scurried home at dusk,

Led now to cinders, to piles of ashes,
Arranged in neat rows along the street.

A Catalan preacher once stood there,
There, at the end of the street,

And prayed for a multitude of hoarders.
And they, not knowing, nor seeking to know,

Clapped their greedy hands in joy at the spectacle
Of their mouldering means.

And this man, of the caste which had decreed
That whitemen should preach in the churches of Africa,

This man, wrung his hands in true grief,
Leaving off his robes of office, and standing,

Naked as the children, before his image.

But the red and white patterns had already begun to form;

The twisted trees defied the gale,
But fell, just the same, beside the track.

And at their crashing, blistering miscreants threw themselves at the sky,
All but obscured by the clouds of dust - red, timeless dust.

And the pink diamonds from Bogotá lay in the dirt,
Where the children had found them.

R. J. Bater, 1969-04-09