Images.(Poem)

 
IMAGES 
 
   The dictionary defines viaduct 
   as a structure which carries a railway 
   or road over a valley. But to me 
   viaduct is the reddish arches beside 
   Pymmes Brook, the cathedral aisle which slopes 
   upwards past the hedge of the bowling green 
   and the tennis courts, the slants of sunlight on walls, 
   on earth floors. The viaduct is guardian 
   of Snake Island where my child paddled 
   deep into imagination, it's keeper 
   of the park where I walk to renew myself, 
   where yesterday I passed the flamboyant red 
   of an autumn sycamore, saw whirling dots 
   of starlings settle in an oak that at once 
   became a singing tree, each bird 
   a note on the stave of twigs. 
      I will never strip 
   the viaduct to its bare facts: the height 
   of its arches, dirty pink patches on bricks, 
   or even the stains from water trickles though 
   they resemble ...