Train of Thought by Claire Smith

What are we, if we have not the eyes to see?
The god of progress has brought us to our knees.
As beings, have we forgotten how to be?

As we rage with glass and steel velocity
The mad-dark crows do battle in the trees,
What are we, if we have not the eyes to see?

The kingly pheasant in the rutted field is free,
When we have the jangling furies to appease.
As beings, have we forgotten how to be?

A cell-phone taps a stale soliloquy
As gondola swans are drifting on the Tees,
What are we, if we have not the eyes to see?

Hermetically sealed in dry-eyed mediocrity
As a sheepdog bristles and a fox, diagonal, flees.
As beings, have we forgotten how to be?

That scudding bracken-colour, the sheer intensity
Of breakneck, life-in-the-fast-lane ease!
What are we, if we have not the eyes to see?

As beings, have we forgotten how to be?




Claire Smith, North East England.