Early morning city

Early morning city

 My last "ready made" poem before the start of the Napowrimo challenge, is another one from 2005 written during my 45 minute walk to work.  It was inspired by an earlier than usual commute and can still take me back to the magic of that morning. 


Leaving my flat early to catch a train
I count twenty people between home and the station.
The number amazes me - the number so low
That I thought of counting.

Birds are waiting to change shift
Crows perch on the lamposts
Not yet ousted by lazy sleep-abed seagulls.

Rubbish bags litter the pavements
Evidences of last night's excesses still visible
Until the road sweeper's brushes return the city to respectability.

It is strange to be about this early
Before the Metro pusher's piles of free papers arrive
And while streets still anticipate the hustling,  bustling commuters.

People behave differently at this hour
Rubbish carts dare illegal manoeuvres to cross the road
People smile and murmur greetings conspiratorially as they pass.

I love this time of morning before the city wakes up
A bubble of quiet surrounding me,  sounds arriving from far away
Like noises in a swimming pool,  not quite real,  mysterious. 

Fleeting thoughts of getting up every day
At this magic hour,  when the city becomes a village
Soon evaporate as the day takes its weary toll.

Perhaps it is better
To save the magic for infrequent reminders
To keep it my own little secret,  to enjoy now and then. 


© Copyright 2018. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Leave taking

I've been to two funerals recently. I suppose it's inevitable that their frequency will increase as I get older,  and my peer group ages alongside me.  It makes you consider your own mortality, and prompts a resolve to use the days left to you more wisely.  But somehow you never do, preferring to think there's still enough time left.   The death of an elderly uncle is easier to bear. It's possible to reflect on a long life, well lived,  To remember the fun you had when you were small, How he made you shriek until you were breathless,  To consider the grace of his faith, which eased his end.  The death of my sunny, fun-filled friend Is much harder to balance. We are all too aware She had too few years to enjoy her joyful take on life,  Will miss out on too many evenings full of laughter,  No longer guide her grandchildren into adulthood. Both deaths celebrated as a release from pain.  Both lives celebrated as lives lived well.  We carry their memories home with us,   To
Read more

Dont go to India

I wrote this after a toilet stop in the way from Jaipur to Varaneeshya.  Don't go to India  not if you worry about squatting over a hole in the ground, with no running water. not if you worry about hawkers thrusting their wares in your face, "300, 200, 100 only". not if you worry about children caked in street filth, tugging at your sleeve, your heart. not if you worry about rubbish, plastic bottles, bags, packaging, strewn across the streets. But if you can make peace with all that  you will find beauty wherever you look. ©  Copyright 2023. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved
Read more

Kindness

Day 25: '  write a poem based on the “ Proust Questionnaire ,” a set of questions drawn from Victorian-era parlor games, and  adapted by modern interviewers . You could choose to answer the whole questionnaire, and then write a poem based on your answers, answer just a few, or just write a poem that’s based on the questions. You could even write a poem in the form of an entirely new Proust Questionnaire.' Typically I read the prompt in a rush before going swimming, seized on the word 'virtue' and composed something while in the pool.  It was only when I got back home that I realised the question was about the most overrated virtue.  Too late, I've written instead about the most underrated virtue: kindness.  It's hidden in the little things That brighten up each day. It's in the chores done without prompting,  The coins you save for my after-swim hairdryer,  The morning coffee brewed with a smile , The blanket shared on chilly evenings. It's in the well
Read more