In the Wake of Time
A descending stanza poem: Watching time
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If we look at the same scene each day for a few years, we are really watching time as it rolls along its way…
Next door to where I lived as a child in the 70s, there was a World War 2 bomb site.
Before the area was eventually redeveloped, it was a playground for me and many other young children.
“In the Wake of Time”
I used to roam around a bomb site when young.
Crumbling walls under open skies.
Faded paint chipped and peeling,
fell like autumn leaves among the roofless rooms.
Broken shreds of crockery echoing times before.
Yet, I never thought of what had been.
A few years later, I watched the workman arrive
and slowly clear the old field of the past.
They took it away in giant skips,
laying level cement in its place,
smoothing out the cracks from all the yesterdays.
New houses emerged up from the ground.
Square boxes devoid of chimneys or grace,
embracing the promise of tomorrow,
while erasing the scars of old wars.
Then the nuclear families moved in.
Their new lives unfurling
among the ghosts of former times.
The children played on the streets,
oblivious to the horrors of the bomb.
A new age had begun…
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I don't only love the poem, but also the format. Your words give food for thought...
I love this, May! You should definitely consider writing more poetry! It's such a profound meditation on memory, history, and progress. 💜