the bread of life

Here's a short Norman MacCaig poem, taken from the pictured 1990 anthology ...


The Red and the Black

We sat up late, talking -
thinking of the screams of the tortured
and the last silence of starving children,
seeing the faces of bigots and murderers.

Then sleep.

And there was the morning, smiling
in the dance of everything. The collared doves
guzzled the Rowan berries and the sea
washed in, so gently, so tenderly.
Our neighbours greeted us
with humour and friendliness.

World why do you do this to us,
giving us the poison with one hand
and the bread of life with another?

And reason sits helpless at its desk,
adding accounts that never balance,
finding no excuse for anything.

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Norman MacCaig (1910 - 1996)

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