Waste

Lights drift upon the black water,
as, viscous as oil, the stream flows;
passing silently under the bridges,
soft and secret and splashless it goes.
A man walks the cobbled embankment
passing under occasional lamps,
the shadows rise up to walk with him,
brought to life in the chills and the damps.
But don’t ask him what he remembers,
don’t ask him where he is bound;
it’s all water flowed under the bridges,
with no story, no crying, no sound.

Then the stillness is suddenly fractured,
wings are whipping and whirling, gulls cry:
with a thump and a rumble of diesel,
yellow hazards against the night sky,
men are busily clearing the rubbish,
briskly emptying barrows and bins -
silver packaging sparkles, glows briefly,
must be gone as the new day begins.
So metal jaws seize it and swallow,
sad remains of a time that is gone;
the man stops and he watches a moment,
then he turns up his collar, walks on.

We dance a short while and we sparkle,
and it seems our lives matter and glow,
but watch the lights fade in the water,
see them drift down and die in its flow.
So I’ll walk on, duck under the arches,
pretty soon I’ll be lost from your view;
leaving something perhaps of an echo
of the man whom you thought that you knew.
A new day is dawning without me,
where faith fights new battles with doubt,
where water flows smooth in the sunlight,
with the lights on the cobbles switched out.