Ernest Hilbert - When Tracing New Borders

When tracing new borders for the Middle East,
W.C., drunk, allowed his pencil to slip
And left a thirty-mile polyp on the

Page that presses into Jordan to this day.
Traveling to the edge of the salient,
One finds only sand and dirty rock, wind.

Sometime in the eighteenth century, a
Minor Russian administrator was
Sent to erect a boundary post on the

Barren trail between Yekateringburg
And Tyumen to mark the division
Of Europe from Asia, one of many

That have been drawn. Flakes of snow scattered the
Landscape, gleamed in fragile starlight, made the
Route indistinct. Bound in iron fetters,

Tsarist exiles passing the frontier would
Kneel and fitfully scoop the last handfuls
Of European soil beneath colorless

Winter sun. They crouched as long as they could,
Struggling not to cry, before being pushed forward,
Gazing into the sapphire dusk over

The hills ahead. One observer wrote that
'No other boundary in the world has seen
So many shattered hearts.' There was no return

From that point, like crossing into the azure
Frost of Hades without a golden bough
To ensure retreat. One bitter morning,

An Oxford professor, born in Russia,
Gazed out of his rain-spattered window at
Garden walls receding down a grey English

Lane and thought of a tidal Europe, its
Borders rising and falling back in time.
For centuries vespers ascend and fall

From cathedrals and cloisters, and sadly,
Announcing the familiar decline of
Day and light, mark limits and origins.

Ernest Hilbert

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