An Iron Lung |
over the plains
and the cities
the pale moon sun
like a sickly child
turns up the heat,
talk over the top
of the smog
the barrier beneath
the yellow rolled fog,
it stands in effect
for the whole blue world
which is yellow
and hazy,
the child
in the picture
will breathe
no other
A child in our village in the days of the Polio epidemic lived for some years in an iron lung - appalling to think of.
ReplyDeleteThanks Pat, a sobering thought.
ReplyDeleteI cant see a child anywhere. If he/she was in there I would see a head.
ReplyDeleteRachel, I think the poetic picture is supposed to be in the reader's head. The "sickly child" with a fever in the poem, and the "pale moon sun" growing hotter in the cities on the plains suggests breathing bad air, the pollution of the "yellow" fog (a nod to Eliot); now recall the fogs we had in GB before the clean air act as they now have in China, India etc. In fact here in Austria the city of Graz has already exceeded its fine particle allowance for the whole of 2015, which is what prompted the poem.
ReplyDeleteI only see things in black and white.
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