More Than One Power

18 December 2023

The Romans did not like surprises (the Greeks did!)
and we are left asking (for five-hundred years now)
just how, how much certainty man can afford,
and if not up to Rome's standard, whom shall we serve?
Not the Greeks, with their autonomic failures,
and not now the English instead, who resemble the Romans
quite certainly. No, no, the Germans won't salvage us either...
I think what we need is a new kind of certainty,
firm in action but pliable in negotiation, because,
after all, there are more than one power, and we need our allies
to know that.