After a clinical assessment later that evening

the chief wept into his napkin, curiously rueful,

while his wife washed the elephants.

Perhaps this was not the marriage

we had originally discovered—

delicate and moving, now merely quirky

(though nonetheless skillfully rendered).

Thus we remember their beginnings

bagging polar bears and camping

along the glazed, sacred rivers.

Insatiable, they searched for authenticity

in geology, their good taste intact

except for the occasional necessity,

always adorned with ribbons and foil.

*

We were told countless times

that there had been a sea change

taking place behind the palace walls.

How much, by any ordinary standard,

was what worried the aides,

who bobbed their heads and swallowed.

Security wouldn’t let us end up there

so we complained; we picked up the phone—

but never seemed to strike it rich.

More interesting was the lead of others,

the subgroup seeking spiritual cameos.

These were somewhat vulnerable people,

robed in white, arriving just in time

to abandon that fabled English reserve.

*

At war’s end the mellowness

seemed to represent success,

the logical culmination of an era

when expectations dwindled

and made no narrative sense.

During those years, moments

of dawn-like hope did occur,

though few fully established

themselves in anyone’s memory.

Now audiences assemble in theaters

to witness a series of filmed re-enactments

that undermine the current pleasantness

with startlingly juxtaposed scenes,

reminders of a once undependable world.