Waiting

Waiting…


You could almost reach up
and touch the deserted balcony
above the busy street; its old
metal railings admit striped light
to a world you can’t quite see,
a forgotten stage, a proscenium
where a memory lingers, or a sense
of something about to happen.

Down in the streets, in pairs, women
walk, talk and laugh together;
men, in twos, stride manfully.

Two buses together
at the depot, ready to rumble
waiting for their driver,
are vessels, waiting to be filled.

Behind walls and windows people
are talking, or sitting and listening.
There are people going somewhere
or waking up at home
getting ready to go somewhere –
to staff an enquiry desk,
or get to their shift,
to meet in the park or
just to be in the park,
queuing for cinemas,
standing in bars,
on moving staircases,
like red cells in capillaries
or like droplets moving
in tubes of glass. Travelling

somewhere or returning
from travelling;
moving points in a panel
of sky connect up the globe….


And the stage, tiny and bare,
is still lonely, still waiting,
as the light alters,
for two actors again to enter
and play out their scene together.

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