Sisters

These two, DOROTHY AND CLARICE DENCH —
A pair of local spinster sisters, as I guess —
Both died, two years apart, aged ninety-five.
Yet ‘We are only here a little while’
Is carved, with names and dates, into this bench:
A saying of theirs, perhaps, that raised a smile
When each new birthday found them still alive,
That friends recalled with wry tenderness?

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Rupert Darwall

Labour has walked into a net-zero trap of its own making

Did they walk their dogs here every day
Then stop at ‘their’ bench and sit gratefully,
Half-hearing distant cries (Howzat? or Play!),
Half-watching men in whites move on the green
As ‘Flush’ and ‘Bingo’ barked at long leg-drives
That rolled, to dry applause, towards the screen?
Unhusbanded, the days turned into lives
That went on for almost a century —

Wars and revolutions came and went;
Shop windows in the high street showed strange goods
While brands grew less and less familiar;
Children from the new-built neighbourhoods
Wore different clothes, played different games.