A Snail’s Path Towards Peace
When did Sundays stop being sacrosanct?
In the Wroclaw suburbs
pressed hard against wire meshing
& miles of busy allotments
& long before the day begins
(officially at least) the sky buzzes
with unwelcome overtures —
metal on metal, metal grinding
something else, DIY enthusiasts
with lawnmowers out in the dew
earnestly planning to beat snails
in the race across the lawn.
Some days, I think I’m back
in England, remember another bright
morning near Kew Gardens
storming over to a neighbour
at 0700 one Sunday — Sunday mind you!
carrying more decibels than her
grinding builders could ever put out
Don’t you know there’s a law?!
But here, perhaps there is no law
or, like everywhere else, it’s been
superseded by the great well of ignorance
now consuming the world.
Then, further back, as a boy
in Small Heath, Birmingham
surrounded by furnaces & the red wheels
of industry, belching black soot
& more indeterminate sounds
that played through the night like
a full orchestra of the ashamed
rats scurrying at the back door.
To see how far you’ve come is a grace
& as I ponder the words Industrial Complex
reckon they’re more complex than first thought
Copyright Simon Heathcote
