So, you would have me picture
My sunny morning platform
This safe haven where Victorian architecture guards
The good people of Age Concern
And the second-hand bookshop that sells other lives
To small-town commuters
And the kind of tourists that visit here
For love of small delights:
Would you have me vision this in aftermath
Like those grey unfocused images of Dresden and Coventry
Seen in a school exhibition?
I can see it, if you wish
The shattered glass of ornamental lamps
Lies beneath shards of once-elegant canopy.
The rosy haze between the tracks
Not wildflowers but bloodstains
Where the old gentleman with his morning newspaper
Has fallen.
A cold wind howls about the decorative ironwork
While the gaggle of formerly excited schoolchildren
Cower behind the upturned café tables.
The quiet guy with a laptop, wearing sunglasses
Screams hate
And the pair of elegantly made-up business women
Cover their faces and sob despair.
This I am forced to see.
But: while I can see the shattered glass
The disintegration
The cold wind and screaming children
I cannot picture
The rubble at the end of the platform
Without some wildflowers
Growing through