Safe Harbour by Suz Winspear

As Orson Welles said on the wheel,
in times of strife and chaos, art will thrive.
If that were true, these nervous times will show
a huge resurgence of creative acts.
The last-night buses will convey
a thousand stories, insight-deep
to counteract abusive angry words,
and sonnets will be piled up high
behind the foodbank doors.
Mystic sculptures will adorn the polling booths
and arias resound in jobcentres.
When transatlantic news reports
tell tales of unimagined power
handed to sour white men with ugly views,
a generation will enchant us with new thoughts
that no-one ever dared to think before.

Maybe . .
or maybe not.

Maybe what we need are some few souls
shining like lanterns on a headland late at night,
warning ships of rocks they must avoid,
warning of hazards, lights to show the way
and guide them safely through the breaking storms
that swamped and wrecked our fragile fleet,
guide them with their clear and honest beams
into safe harbour.