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Engineers
for Frederick Turner
It is true the engineers have built us round
With edifices mightier than fair.
Their calculations guide them without error:
Set in concrete their soulless forms are sound,
Whilst we, poor poets, flutter in their spaces
Like the last butterfly in Terezín,
Or camp in some diminishing oasis
Encroached on every day by their demesne.
And yet we too could build, if we could find
Again the ancient compass of our trade,
Access the plan, imprinted on our mind,
That makes one form of all that we have made,
A temple, whence the Word might gradually
Transform the kingdoms of utility.
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