Tunnelling through the night, the trains pass
in a splendour of power, with a sound like thunder,
shaking the orchards; waking
the young from a dream; scattering like glass
the old men’s sleep: laying
a black trail over the still bloom of the orchards;
the trains go north with guns.

Strange, primitive piece of flesh, the heart laid quiet,
hearing their cry pierce through its thin-walled cave
recalls the forgotten tiger,
and leaps awake in its old panic riot:
how, too, shall mind be sober,
since blood’s red thread still binds us fast in history?
Tiger, you walk through all our past and future,
troubling the children’s sleep: laying
a reeking trail across our dream of orchards.