A Small Child's
Bootie.
A small child's bootie
half-buried in sand,
bright colours and animal
emblem
like an exotic orchid cradled in my
hand.
A group of giggling schoolgirls posing
on a bridge,
nudging one another as they glance
in my direction,
prim but seductive in crisp
blue and white school uniforms.
A tiny hut,
yellow lamplight in its window,
beneath soft
velvet skies of twilight,
glimpsed through a
grimey train window,
the hump-backed shapes of
asian mountains behind it
like great protective
beasts.
A young boy tending a rice
field,
a flute stuck down his trouser
belt;
small cows running excitedly towards a
dusty jeep
bringing them their
breakfast.
Scenes of life and intimacy just
beyond my reach,
scenes glimpsed through a
grimey train window,
hurtling through the day
and night,
a million worlds in a collision so
light and brief
no-one hardly notices
it.
Moths and insects are caught up by the
engine's passage,
sucked inside open windows and
doors
and carried a hundred miles from where
they were born,
battering themselves to death
against impenetrable glass
through which now,
the black night gleams
showing back my weary
reflection,
every crease and age-line
magnified
as if etched in ink...
A small
child's bootie half-buried in sand,
bright
colours and animal emblem
like an exotic orchid
cradled in my hand.
Always just beyond
reach
- is it your seeming
unattainibility
that makes you appear so
luminous?
Such beauty can only be written by
Willowdown.
September 2007 copyright.
Posted 15:23
