“And where“: a new poem from Anthony Thwaite

And will we recognise the place when we get there. . . ?

(Photo By Paul Nash’s Ruined Country (1917). Photo: Imperial War Museum)

And where we go from here no one can say:
Whether far away
Or round the corner, hidden,
Perhaps sudden
Coming down like a blind,
And whatever lies behind
As dark as midnight, or as bright as day.

And will we recognise the place when we get there,
A familiar air
Smelling like fields we knew,
And see the true
Path we must follow now,
No matter how
We wondered when we landed here; or where?

Anthony Thwaite, born in 1930, has been a university teacher, a radio producer and a literary editor of the New Statesman. He is one of Philip Larkin’s literary executors and editors. His most recent volume of poetry is Going Out (Enitharmon Press, £9.99).