The Terrorist.
"Awake, awake", the watchman cried, "fire, fire",
As out into the night he stared with anxious eyes.
His pedestrian friend turned to him, with calming voice,
Bade "Hush! They sleep within; and haply dream of profit; or of love."
The excited watchman turned away in scorn. "Can thinking men,
Content themselves with hopes and dreams?"
"No, indeed", his level-headed friend replied,
"But you scare me, friend, your talk of fire. If, waking now,
They heeded well your words, abandoned jobs, laid down their tools,
And started for the hills, I think we'd find ourselves starving in the desert
with five billion hungry mouths.
"Let us calmly plan ahead.
Perhaps you could devise a scheme to shrink twofold
In twenty years our number and our wealth; reduce our cars,
Our appetites, our needs and wants –– in many steps,
Each step being made by choice."
Ian West, Banbury, July 2025
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