Walking my dog on a street I see once a month I find
demolition. Here was a fairy dell, a green deeply shaded path now levelled to a
house-block. Machines at work scissoring the ground, where the hard-hats scurry
to make a living. Something sold to destruction. Coasting through the city, towering
walls of offices, cranes atop, whole streets grind out continuous
transformation. Ghosts of sites removed with hardly power to haunt.
Are we the same? How vintage will we become? We might
be classic cars, taken for a spin on Sundays. A little shredded, sleeves
unthreaded, lacking gloss and shine and shiver. The ghost of past life acts
powerfully from its resting-place.
Can we forgive
our gods their weaknesses? Cycling and recycling station and vocation, we scarce
catch up with our coattails, sweeping away with leaves on the porch, revolving
through sects and checks and balances, of histories as well as books. Vanity is
all, saith the preacher.
Yet vintages grow in the vineyards, daily bread is
broken, birds nest in the mustard tree. The man who’s painting my house waits
for his wife to give birth. I’m serious: the house needs a coat of paint.
