round herds of houses
brick tenements crawled over by ivy
where babes and elders alike once spent
their sunshine on imagining
another life
There was always a big tree
knotted and tall, presiding
over crawling grasses, bent
as if daily brushed back
by combing winds
Where once the day was in its eld
daring to begin to sink into horizon
causing windows of spilled
starlight swiftly to close
on the grasses and dappled leaves
little eyes would look up
watching the slow spill
of floating foliage turning in,
the harsh rumble of the rush
hour of little consequence
to them the mere rumble
of wandering beasts,
cold hearts needing a spark
to start, lurking around loudly outside
the gates, beyond the boundaries
of their little Eden
What happened?
The wandering beasts have come and gone;
we, supposedly safe, watched from windows
our tall trees become toothpicks
for the toothy machine
Now we remain guiltily huddled
beneath the bricks, closed
doorways securely fastened
against the imminent lurking
Danger, as diffuse as the winding
white threads that once crept
from the twin chimneys
where beneath the elders and babes spend
their little lives imagining
a big , knotted tree, an oak or an elder—
no fires for youths to dream
beside, to be freed by; no crackling
hearths only cold cinders waiting
for a spark
by: Raymond Alistair
