We are nothing special you and I.
No one stops to stare when I place
my hand in yours and our mild spats pass
unreported on the local evening news.
No ceremony marks our new made peace.
Planes do not deviate from their paths
when we sigh and our laughter rings out
only locally. When we are fond
there follows no great display,
no festivals, no decoration of the sky.
An absence of applause reliably greets
our walk around the park, the occasion
of our return to the house no cause
for expulsion of diplomats, threats
of sanctions, border skirmishes, debate
in international courts. Nothing we have done
will become a meme. We are often watching TV.
You and I. Two amidst the billions here,
gone. We share the same geography,
same limited range of notes, of song.
Yet these experiments in how to live
are ours alone, as these words,
each one worn down, so often
shaped by breath, by use, by time
but, since language was begun,
never set down exactly like this.
Now I have them caught,
not extraordinary but even so,
here they are, set in place thus.
Joined in this sequence, just for us.
All Rights. Giles Constable.
Giles Constable had intended to write. He is approaching 60 and realised recently that he had therefore better get on with it. He lives in London and is preoccupied with time, love, death and ornithology.
