Reliant first on word of mouth
and then the penny post, later
the death watch tick of the telegraph,
it had its work cut out to reach us.
In the days of Barnum
it learned to be a trapeze artist
balanced on the high wire
announced by a fanfare.
Still, there was a whole world
where we could be safe; on trains,
in shops, lost in a forest of city blocks,
on the wide sweep of empty beaches
where sand dunes and concrete
fortifications held it at bay. Now
the only refuge from bad news
is in art, in libraries or galleries
patrolled by shushing librarians
and silent notices; and sometimes
in the windy lee of tall buildings
before they fall.
Reliant first on word of mouth
and then the penny post, later
the death watch tick of the telegraph,
it had its work cut out to reach us.
In the days of Barnum
it learned to be a trapeze artist
balanced on the high wire
announced by a fanfare.
Still, there was a whole world
where we could be safe; on trains,
in shops, lost in a forest of city blocks,
on the wide sweep of empty beaches
where sand dunes and concrete
fortifications held it at bay. Now
the only refuge from bad news
is in art, in libraries or galleries
patrolled by shushing librarians
and silent notices; and sometimes
in the windy lee of tall buildings
before they fall.
