PRAGUE, NOVEMBER '89

PRAGUE, NOVEMBER '89
"It's a pity I'm so old", the woman said,
"But still I'm glad. Oh, I'm glad, I'm glad!"
And sad, like one who knows she'll soon be dead.
In fifty years but three such Springs she's had,
And all her adult life was spent in bondage,
To Hitler, then to Stalin, then to Stalin's
Brute, enfeebled heirs in brigandage;
And now she's old and ending, life begins!
Old worker in our "workers' state", who never
Knew that we approved (reluctantly)
And maybe never cared quite what the answer
Was, about their place in history.
In Prague, November nineteen eighty nine,
When Stalin's heirs reached the end of the line.

Socialist Organiser, March 1990