The Remains of the Day

Lights reflect on the oily black water,
as with hardly a sound the stream flows -
through the  secretive arches of bridges,
dark and deep, without splashes it goes.
A man walks the cobbled embankment
and under occasional lamps,
where shadows rise up to walk with him,
brought to life in the chills and the damps.
He thinks of past times half remembered,
he wonders just where he is bound;
like the water that flows through those arches,
he is silent, his feet make no sound.

The stillness is suddenly fractured,
wings whipping and whirling, gulls cry:
with a thump and a rumble of diesel,
and hazards to strobe the night sky,
men are busily clearing the rubbish,
briskly emptying barrows and bins -
silver packaging sparkles, glows briefly,
will be gone as the morning begins.
The metal jaws seize it and swallow,
the remains of a day that is gone;
the man pauses to watch for a moment,
then he turns up his collar, walks on.

We dance a short while and we sparkle,
and perhaps our lives glitter and glow;
but at last the lights fade in the water,
drifting onwards to die in its flow.
So he walks, ducking under the arches,
till at last he is lost from our view;
leaving only the ghost of an echo
of a man we thought maybe we knew.
Now the new day is dawning without him,
and the city’s all clamour and shout,
as the river turns gold in the sunrise,
and the lights on the towpath go out.