Now Pains the Builder

 

     We have giants here, Men, Women,

whose stature and experience make them tall

as old Oaks,

     the struggle to find a sole worthy

of walking this ancient world, incomprehensible.

 

     As tall as Oaks whose branch would filter

Sunlight – their scope of life, from bricky to nurse,

     beyond a measure we now persist be a box

of identification.

 

     This World now sits as audience

to those felt a necessity to pain,

yet pain is all the elders know here -

not wanting to partake in the glory of kill.

 

     As tall as trees with roots that go

in equal measure below this now facile

Earth,

     theirs is a pain we do not know

as each hearse passes by in a wood grab,

          ‘(so too, where are our elderly)?’

 

     It is not safe to stay here,

it is not safe to call yourself free,

it is not safe to be family here

     as their features are written in grief.

 

Michael J Waite. 16th September 2022. For Tony, Lorraine, Ritchie and all at The Newmarket – Inverness.