I’ve seen so many eyes today

Shifting up and down in the social ocean

Of High Street like buoys lost

But never giving up.

One or two have recently cried

Some from laughter, others not.

Another finds interest in the concrete.

Hers are full of flame, and

His are cooling off.

The old man looks confused.

The young just the same but

In other ways.

I am walking in the rain

And smiling,

But no one holds my gaze.

Leaning up against a tree,

The years wrapped round in circles.

Those rings kept wrapped round

In tightened bark, poking like a

Curious finger, Given some time,

I’m sure that the tree would

Wrap around my skin, keep me

Safe and silent and slow,

Allowed to watch the low wall

That wraps around this park,

Disintegrating into rubble

And being built again out of

That rubble. I’d see the children,

Let loose by their parents to play,

Grow old and set their own kids

To climb our gnarled branches,

Up as high as they dare to go,

Their first kisses under those branches

With eager sideways looks

That are full of something that

Always grows but never grows old.