It would be easy now to throw it all away
And in some extreme give up.
How easy to drop sublety and
Dictate my rights and wrongs;
Raise the fist, point “There the Enemy!”
Lash the weak with insinuations of mistrust.
Easy to think that might should follow on my right
And proclaim” This is the path to follow”
Gambling on a chance that English men have changed,
Will rush headlong through the indicated gap.
Not sit there waiting for one knows not what –
There’s got to be another track

Their past was not a leader that was like to move them
But, rather, some joint instinct drifted them and then said “Go”
Not organised beyond recall,
Not over good or over bad.
What they ever did they ever really know?
The should and ought and individual becoming us.

I would like to blame some other.
Discharge discomfort with a shouted threat,
But I know my rights are someone else’s wrongs –
One moment it is my chance then its not.

Written by Jackie Wearing - first published on openwriting.com, January 3, 2006