…autumn from the train…empty parks washed
in melancholy greens…slow smoke of leaves…
a Wendy House toppled…motorists,
on an underpass, stopped for the blue flash
of a passing emergency…doctor
and priest jostling beside the newly born
mess of humanity, head ballooning
with water, back cleaved, a tangle of entrails
and heart booming like presses: the measure
of our compassion…hospitals, chapels,
mills aspiring to grey horizons…
from the train, things in themselves – fallen
leaves, a tumbled playhouse…
By David Selzer