I passed a window full of televisions
as gray as British bankers,
though imported.
And there in England I saw
the twin towers of its former colony
crumble like toys made of fire
and brimstone,
the enormity of it more
terrible, reduced to fit in a living room.

Were we the only Americans in Bath
that November? So insisted
the taxi driver
winding his way to Stonehenge.
And there stood the stones just over a rise
As if just yesterday, back
in the Iron Age,
some first farmer had tried
to clear a field so he could plant it.

And there they still sat as if over the hill
would yet come a last wagon,
two centuries late,
and men to complain how hard
to break off a piece they could carry away.
For what earthly use was this folly
to the eighteenth century?
There were great houses to be built.
For the newly rich lived lives made sweete ...

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