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Posted on 09/30/2001 2:16:08 PM PDT by Thoeting

Nightmare at Noon

Stephen St.Vincent Benet

There are no trenches dug in the park, not yet.
There are no soldiers falling out of the sky.
It's a fine clear day in the park. It is bright and hot.
The trees are in full, green, summer-heavy leaf.
An airplane drones overhead, but no one's afraid.
There's no reason to be afraid, in a fine big city
That was not built for war. There is time and time.

There was time in Norway and the thing fell.
When they woke, they saw the planes with the black crosses.
When they woke, they heard the guns rolling in the street.
They could not believe it at first. It was hard to believe.
They had been friendly and thriving and inventive.
They had had good arts, decent living, peace for years.
Those were not enough it seems.
There were people there, who wrote books and painted pictures,
Worked, came home tired, like to be left alone.
They made fun of the would-be Caesars who howled and foamed.
That was not enough it seems. It was not enough.
When they woke, they saw the planes with the black crosses.

There is grass in the park. There are children on the long meadow
Watched by some hot, peaceful nuns. Where the ducks are fed
There are black children and white and the anxious teachers
Who keep counting them like chickens. It's quite a job
To take care of so many school kids in the park.
But when they've eaten their picnic, they'll go home.
(And they could have better homes, in a richer city.)

But they won't be sent to Kansas, or Michigan
At twenty-four hours notice.
Dazed, bewildered, clutching their broken toys,
Hundreds on hundreds filling the blacked-out trains,
Just to keep them safe, just so they may live, not die.
Just so there's one chance that they may not die, but live
That does not enter our thoughts. There is plenty of time.

In Holland, one hears, some children were less lucky.
It was hard to send them anywhere in Holland.
It is a small country, you see. The thing happened quickly.
The bombs from the sky are quite indifferent to children.
The machine guns do not distinguish. In Rotterdam
One quarter of the city was blown to bits.
That included naturally, ordinary buildings
With the usual furnishings such as cats and children.
It was an old peaceful city, Rotterdam,
Clean, tidy, full of flowers,
But that was not enough it seems
It was not enough to keep the children safe.
It was ended in a weak, and freedom ended.

There is no air raid siren yet, in the park.
All the glass still stands in the windows around the park.
The man on the bench is reading a Yiddish paper.
He will not be shot because of that, oddly enough.
He will not even be beaten or imprisoned.
Not yet, not yet.

You can be a Finn or a Dane, and an American
You can be a German or French, and an American.
Jew, Bohunk, Nigger, Mick--all the dirty names
We call each other--and yet an American.
We've stuck to that for quite a while.
Go into Joe's Diner and try to tell the truckers
You belong to a master race and you'll get a laugh.
What's that brother? Double-talk?
I'm a stranger here myself, but it's a free country.
It's a free country . . .

Oh yes, I know the faults and the other side.
The lyncher's rope, the bought justice, the wasted land,
The scale on the leaf, the borers in the corn.
The finks with their clubs, the gray sky of relief,
All the long shame of our hearts and the long disunion.
I am merely remarking--as a country, we try.
As a country, I think we try.

They tried in Spain, but the tanks and the planes won out.
They fought very well and long.
They fought to be free but it seems it was not enough.
They did not have the equipment, so they lost.
They tried in Finland, the resistance was shrewd,
Skillful, intelligent, waged by a free folk.
They tired in Greece, and they threw them back for a while.
By the soul and spirit and passion of common man.

Call the roll of the Fourteen Nations. Call the roll
Of the blacked-out lands, the lands that used to be free.
But do not call it loud. There is plenty of time,

There is plenty of time while the bombs London fall
And turn the world to wind and water and fire.
There is time to sleep while the fire-bombs fall on London.
They are stubborn people in London.

We are slow to wake, good-natured as a country,
(It's our fault and our virtue) We like to raise a
Man to the highest power and then throw rocks on him
We don't like war and we like to speak our minds.
We're used to speaking our minds.

There are certain words,
Our own and other's we're used to--words we've used,
Heard, had to recite, forgotten,
Rubbed shiny in the pocket, left home for keepsakes,
Inherited, stuck away in the back drawer,
In the locked trunk at the back of the quiet mind.

Liberty, equality, fraternity.
To none will we sell, refuse or deny, right or justice,
We hold these truths to be self-evident.

I am merely saying, what if these words pass?
What if they pass and are gone and are no more?
Eviscerated, blotted out of the world?
We're used to them, so used that we half-forget,
The way you forget the looks of your own home
And yet you can walk around it in the darkness.

You can't put a price on sunlight or the air
You can't put a price on these, so they must be easy.
They were bought with belief and passion, at great cost.
They were bought with the bitter and anonymous blood
Of farmers, teacher, shoemakers and fools
Who broke the old rule and the pride of kings
And some that never saw the end and many that were weary
Some doubtful, many confused.

They were bought by the ragged boys at Valmy Hill,
The yokels at Lexington with the long light guns.
And the dry, New England faces,
The iron barons, writing a charter out
For their own iron advantage, not the people
And yet the people got it into their hands
And marked it with their sweat.
It took a long time to buy these words
It took a long time to buy them, and much pain.

Thence fore and forever free
Thence fore and forever free.
No man may be bound or fined or slain till he has been judged by his peers.
To form a more perfect union.

The others have their words too, and strong words,
Strong as the tanks, explosive as the bombs.

The State is all, worship the State!
The Leader is all, worship the Leader!
Strength is all, worship Strength!
Worship, bow down, or die!

I shall go back through the park to my safe house,
This is not London or Paris,
This is the high, bright city, the lucky place,
The place that always had time.
The boys in their shirtsleeves, the high flowering girls.
The bicycle rider, the kids with the model planes,
The tough kids, squirting water at the fountains,
Whistled at by the cop.
The dopes that write, "Jimmy's a dope" on the tunnel walls.
These are all quite safe and nothing will happen to them,
Nothing will happen to them...of course.

Go tell the brokers story about the President.
Whatever it is, that's going to help a lot.
There is plenty of time--plenty of time.
Go tell the fire, it only burns in another country.
Go tell the bombers, this is the wrong address,
The hurricane to pass on the other side.
Go tell the earthquake, it must not shake our ground.

The bell has rung in the night, and the air quakes with it.

I shall not sleep when I hear the planes tonight.

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