Election-Night Pageant

There was a time When one might have described an election As the occasion on which the country declared what it wanted Tonight, that formulation appears To have acquired a number of local exceptions In many constituencies, the act remains serious Without being especially affirmative A vote may now signify enthusiasm, reluctance, prevention Or the tactical containment of something judged worse Participation, while sufficient to constitutional purpose Has perhaps been less emphatic Than the older language of mandate would ideally prefer Even so The counts proceed Good evening The polls are closed The boxes sealed The pencils down The cameras on The nation waits Or says it does A hall goes bright A stage appears A count begins In careful tiers A banner shakes A rosette gleams A spokesman smooths The edge of dreams A local map A national claim A tired result A larger name The room is full Of people paid To tell the dark What shape it made Too early yet Too close to call Too soon to say Too much at all And still the mouths Begin to form The old warm words Against the storm Mandate, message, warning, win History wants to be let in Shock and shift And moral swing Every total means a thing Result, responsibility The people spoke selectively Count the seats Ignore the air Dress the silence like it's there A seat falls red A seat turns blue A third one says The old thing's through A graph climbs up A face holds still A host declares Emerging will A loss gets called A deeper sign A thin advance A harder line The map lights up The phrases breed A country shrinks To what they need A warning shot A sober mood A broken base A fractured good A vote for calm A vote for change A vote translated By the range Mandate, message, warning, win Arithmetic dressed up as skin Historic, sobering, clear enough Even when the cloth is thin enough Result, responsibility The people spoke in seat geometry Count the rows Announce the heart Call the fragments "playing their part" Some did not come Some came to block Some lent a vote Against the clock Some marked a box With tightened jaw Some stayed home And watched the law Still every chair Will find a name Still every speech Will sound the same The hall half-full The nation whole That is the oldest counting role The Plan The Plan The Plan held ground The line The door The threshold found A surge A slip A tactical grace A second place With a first-place face A pact implied A future sold A young thing new In language old And somewhere underneath the claim A dragging wheel without a name Too soon to say Too late to wait A country enters through the gate A win for hope A win for fear A win for those still standing here A blow to this A check on that A message sent in map on map And every mouth that wants the end Begins by saying "my friends-" Mandate, message, warning, win Bring the commentators in Historic, fractured, broad but slight A clear confusion fills the night Result, responsibility A public staged as unity Raise the graph Prepare the throat Turn the drift into a vote And now at last As count by count The picture sharpens And the country, in its wisdom entrusts itself to