A Life More Ordinary

 

A Life More Ordinary

 

 

I send you a small keepsake,

with a message of good luck

for your journey ahead, such as it is:

I send you an Angel encased

in a crystal ball, frozen in time.

No need to peer into its depths

to dream of futures or see our past,

here is an Angel entombed in glass.

 

Enshrined in an ice that never melts,

Monument to something you once felt.

 

As years pass, it will get chipped

no doubt, perhaps carelessly dropped,

shatter into shocked fragments,

or shoved, unloved and forgotten,

deep into the back of your bric-a-brac drawer,

which is the fate, after all, of all things

once cherished becoming a bore.

 

Love itself is really nothing special,

it’s in thrall to a life more ordinary,

a knot tied, a grab at what you’ve got,

while dreams drift, pass most of us by,

regret becomes that occasional sigh,

just another item we can scarcely afford,

on a supermarket conveyor belt,

seldom grasped and seldom felt.

 

Time’s come for us to stop reaching

for nonsense, turn away from teaching,

kiss goodbye to far-fetched imagination,

see all fools fight fate, farewell to creation

where clouds sing, and nature beckons

riding wildflower upon electric scooters

that weave in tapestry, needling between

morose rows of weather-beaten motorists

in sullen queues, to take hands then fly,

like Lucy in the Sky amongst the winds

and swim with the swans. Yes. Girl gone.

 

Here is an Angel, entombed by a globe,

sweet words of good luck in melting snow,

and what happens next, I’ll never know:

I break my staff, I let you go.