Look Up, Not Down

Look up
Not down.

Beyond the curls and crown of the treetop canopy
And the flat-roofed buses shuffling busily.

Look up,
Not ahead I say.

At the old clock of rusted iron
Its hands undone at a twenty-to-one.

To balustrades lovingly made
And statuettes, imploring to be saved.

At mid-riff cut-aways
At windows dancing.

To the chair on its back, compliant
And a terrace of the young defiant.

At heads and shoulders nodding
Through open windows.

To glove puppet birds, perched beside
A torn plastic bag, cut to size.

At gap-toothed chminey pots
And shivering aerials

To slingshot cranes
And a suspended window-cleaner.

Where once tower blocks climbed high
Now we can see, light and sky.

Where once we saw, light and sky
Now rise new shadows and mixed blessings.

So now that the sun is dusking
And the high contrails reddening.

Look up, not down,
For me if for no one else.

Before it is gone.
Before your very eyes.

SD November 2010