River Blocks

There was a corner,
where the sun highlighted
the water.
So that it looked like
the surface was woven.
Blocks of stone were
placed there to protect
the riverbanks when boats
were as frequent as buses.
When people exploited
the water for the good
and the bad.
Putting some mark on their history.
A needle in the wax.
Leaving a sort of  record.
And yet here it is now,
the boats sixty years gone.
The sweaty, noisy workers
browning images on paper.
While the river is not
changed and could lose
the blocks tomorrow
without the slightest care.

Stages

We sit in the artificial world that is
inside the larger world.
Watching the shadows playing.
They join together making
new shapes with old stories.
Then split to go on,
separately.
Now changed.
While other shadows observe
and make their own
narratives about
what they saw.
Which is us, the audience
and actors.
In and out of the action
changing it as we watch.
Aware of tragedies unfolding
and love enfolding.
There is a sense of pacing
of timing, maybe some direction.
A feeling that we,
will learn,
something.

Not Light

A point of light
moving across the sky
soundlessly, smoothly
reminds me of us
on this planet
so endlessly inventive of ways to disagree
to hurt and to kill.
But from somwhere far off we will be that
shining moving dot with no sign of the turmoil
no sense of the tragedy.
And this was what I saw too.
Was the pilot struggling
facing her final minutes?
Her unlived life bleeding away
like the air from the wings.
The slow cold water of destruction in her gut.
Numbing her down to complete honesty,
so that there is nothing left
but goodbye.
As we are saying inside
our point of light.