Thinking about those nights
Kindles a strange felicity:
Drinking by candlelight
In a pub off the Earls Court Road
In the time of the Three Day Week,
Because there was no electricity.
Certainly we were political.
Nothing, though, seemed as serious—
Intimate and critical –
As the play our shadows made,
Taking their parts in the dance
Of things made newly mysterious.
As in a diorama
Device of antique design,
The scene flickered with meanings
We never knew we possessed:
Each stranger having a guest
Role in the psychodrama.
Serious, yes, and also
Childlike too, in a way:
Like a treat, like a bedtime story
Told in that shadow play:
Chiaroscuro its themes,
The dangerous dark and the glory
Of flame. We were not so much
Aligned with that time and place
As we were somehow in touch
With the only model that fits:
The company of forerunners,
The breathing ghosts of the Blitz.
