Older, but no wiser
Andy Borrows' musings on life and all its confusion, contradictions, richness and opportunities
Monday, April 04, 2005
Interlude
at traffic lights, early
on a grey spring morning.
An interlude
where mind wanders
free
for a while.
Close by
out of sight
a diesel railway engine’s roar
swells,
deepens and shrills.
Look up -
a rusty wire fence,
weeds,
a white-painted wall,
sky,
then nothing: a horizon close enough to touch.
Some quirk of sound and sight
unearths a far distant memory.
Past and present slide
over each other,
merge, match,
and in a snap, are one:
Seaside!
A railway line meets the coast;
the engine roars, moves on,
and we stand a moment, disoriented
amid suitcases and holdalls
and all the paraphernalia
of the beach.
Just the other side
of that fence and wall
is the sea!
This side:
townscape.
Familiar, square-edged, dull.
That side:
Big, wide skies,
land fluid, endlessly dissolving;
feet dabble across one horizon -
walking a line of ending
and beginning –
another horizon beckons…
Then traffic lights change,
seaside fades back to memory.
Just a bite of moist salt air,
an echo of a seagull’s cry
still remain.
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