Urban Pathways

Breathing in concrete

Photo by Flemming Fuchs on Unsplash

Generations of feet tread heavily
Swiftly, resolutely on slabbed concrete
Weighed down by history and chiselled by time.
Click, clack, stomp, the stilettos of colourful
Fashion strut with confidence upon
The grey paved catwalk, as the nameless
Smart march to work with a suffocating
Determination —
A pattern only broken by the slow pace
Of giggling children dawdling to school
And a flurry of mothers with babied strollers
Riding the pavements, ear to phone or heads
Bent down with an eye to one-armed texting.
And while their children skip lightly into spaces
Avoiding lines, and hopscotch the squares,
A boy, eyes closed, one hand on a stroller,
Trustful, imagines and transcends playfully
Into a life of blinded solitude, silence,
And stillness amidst the noise and bustle
Of a throbbing screeching urbanity —
A little one stops, and pulling at her mother’s coat,
Inquires about the meaning of life
In the shape of a man huddled on the pavement
Under a layer of cardboard and wonders if he’s dead.