A grudging penny given to a beggar
Burns through his hand and scorches through the earth.
The wheat fields of the High Street
Sway and wave across the harvest moon
And salmon leap in crimson arcs and silver.
In every corner of every café
Sits a wonder of ancient gold
And gold enamellings
From the outside looking in
A silent clockwork bird
Leans through the glass and
Turns its head at everything.
And in the cold wind, a life
Of quiet, inner joy expands
Like an exploding star.
Within each broiling galaxy
Another is born and sent
Chagall paints through time’s space
Burning in a crucible
Entropy’s igneous imaginings.
A little life holds all the world,
A tiny girl holds hands, gibbers and dances
Ecstatically with joy.
Rain pours through
A huge acacia tree
A maculate giraffe
Saunters by the shops.
Dürer’s armoured rhino lumbers past
Intent on his intent.
Here, where everything is dull and dying
Is where everything is everlastingly alive.
The extraordinary seeps through the ordinary
Bringing us to life.
We walk the pavement every day
We tread upon it as we walk our way
And, with every step, we hear it say
“You weary me.”
Dull grey is made of a million squares of
Vibrant light.
Get close and see this on your knees.
Within each lifeless yard
An endless beauty.
And on these miserable, drab
Becalmed avenues are
Lived out lives of deadness and of joy.
Every High Street sounds like a symphony –
Melodious, a shifting poem of lyric harmonies
Rhymes and rhythms complex and miraculous
An Ellington jazz band dancing on the
Hard and concrete street
Here, amid quotidian grey
Murmured voices mutter banalities.
Here, the dullest suburb life beholds,
Watches the oldest stories in the world unfold
Each cemented yard reveals
A human landscape all unseen,
A muted Odyssey yet untold.