Mown lawns,
A grass filled crater,
An abandoned stone gazebo,
Cracked path,
Busy streets beneath me.
Signs of life to remind me I am not alone.
My mind wanders beside me,
Ticking through your history.
The fort stood tall on its hilly fortress;
The sunken patch,
A reminder left from war;
School children learning of your atrocities,
Whilst dressed like toy soldiers,
And playing games on an abandoned battlefield.
A bitter past resides her,
Not letting up with its permanent marks.
And I think of my own.
Traversing desire paths like you before me.
A servant.
An illegitimate child.
A disowned branch,
Broken by pride.
I own this shared land.
You walked it,
They walked it,
I walked it,
I walked it for two years,
I walk it.
A stillness to the air –
A pause,
A breath –
Bites at me and makes my lungs clutch.
Damp fills my nostrils as the presence of farm life races about me.
Industrialisation breaks the horizon.
Frustrated traffic breaks the silence,
Commuters fighting their way to their 9 to 5,
To feel alive (on weekends and evenings)
I drown them out.
Letting the mating calls of insects,
Creaking of condemned trees,
Distant rhythm of rainfall,
Consume my solitude.
Finding peace within the chaos
As the physical and natural compete for centre stage.
As I watch life continue without me,
I am frozen in time,
If only for a second,
And I let greed consume me as I refuse to leave this moment here.
Reaching my feet and my phone,
I steal some of it for my own,
Until
The next time I return.
By Jennifer Pickering
Intellectual property of Jennifer Pickering. Gain permission before use.
Jennifer Pickering 