Status Updates From Selected Poems of W. H. Auden

Ode to Terminus

scientists, to be truthful,

must remind us to take all they say as a
tall story, that abhorred in the Heavens are all
self-proclaimed poets who, to wow an
audience, utter some resonant lie.

Thanksgiving for a habitat V Up There

All it knows of a changing world it has to
Guess from children, who conjure in its plenum,
Now an eyrie for two excited sisters,
Where, when Mother is bad, her rage can't reach them,
Now a schooner on which a lonely only
Boy sails north or approaches coral islands.