The Melancholy of Resistance

Had the inn shrunk for a moment?

Or was the world too vast?

Had they heard these words so many times

in vain,

‘the darkening sky’

and ‘the earth opening underfoot’

and ‘birds settling on their nests’,

their wild clangour

alleviating something in them once more,

but only once,

some burning itch

of which, as yet, they had no knowledge?