A Woman Unconscious

Russia and America circle each other;

Threats nudge an act that were without doubt

A melting of the mould in the mother,

Stones melting about the root.

The quick of the earth burned out:

The toil of all our ages a loss

With leaf and insect.  Yet flitting thought

(Not to be thought ridiculous)

Shies from the world-cancelling black

Of its playing shadow: it has learned

That there's no trusting (trusting to luck)

Dates when the world's due to be burned;

That the future's no calamitous change

But a malingering of now,

Histories, towns, faces that no

Malice or accident much derange.

And though bomb be matched against bomb,

Though all mankind wince out and nothing endure —

Earth gone in an instant flare —

Did a lesser death come

Onto the white hospital bed

Where one, numb beyond her last of sense,

Closed her eyes on the world's evidence

And into pillows sunk her head.