Rest of the World
From my son’s bedroom window
Gable ends and back gardens cross-hatch
A red brick infinity of homely secrets
That could drop any man inside
Down to a first full stop;
My father and his, and the one before that,
The one whose first name escapes the rest of us,
All look out now and have this prospect,
Or one very much like it, lodge about our persons
To cause minor discomfort only in the odd breather taken
From the coming decades of blissful drift.
In grave danger of happiness, we’ll forget
These rooftops probing the azure rumour
Post Office labels call “Rest of the World”
And in the sun-trapped weed-beds and through periscope hedges,
Under the rusted line poles and listing Cinzano parasols,
Between swabbing the decking and raising the log cabins,
We’ll all go digging, fathers and sons.
Armed with ancient, dodgy implements and truant eyes
We’ll go searching for the further adventures of bricks and mortar,
The unexamined lives making us up as we go along,
Finders–keepers only of what will stay stubbornly hidden
While the bigger plot rumbles along outside,
And they scour forgettable streets for us.
Alan Weadick is from Dublin. His work has been published in the original Burning Bush, Books Ireland, Crannog, Cyphers, Nth position, The Argotist and Roundtable Review.
Burning Bush Revival 