Shades of Shoreditch

Let grief be a fallen leaf

I wander thro’ each charter’d street,

Near where the charter’d Thames does flow.

And mark in every face I meet

Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,

In every Infants cry of fear,

In every voice: in every ban,

The mind-forg’d manacles I hear

William Blake

London

It is almost impossible to miss the eyes.  Amongst the passing crowds, I see all shades of life.  The tide ebbs and flows and there are those who seem to swim fast and well and those who look to drown.  

On a Shoreditch morning little stirs at first, and then, as shutters roll and traffic coughs, the cooking fires are lit and tables set; sweepers flick out the dust and bags and boxes accumulate on the kerb and in the gutters.

Doors open and shut.  Figures meet.

Then retreat into some kind of leafy blue security.

She is still there.  On the corner.  I wonder what she sees.  What she likes?  What she could be wishing for?  Or am I being too intrusive?

All around there are insides, and outsides.

In sides are not exclusive.  I can see them.  I am not excluded, so long as I keep my distance.  Life persists.

Though sometimes it seems that the inside is a lonely place:

Unless your own company is enough?

The out sides may be just as lonely, with a need to make contact:

To stand outside, to talk away:

To walk quickly on by, ignoring the myriad messages, the courting couple painted into the doorway:

Or to ignore the lies fired at us from all around:

Pairs.  Or couples.  Friends.  Or lovers.  

Happy couples?

Unhappy couples?

Hapless pairs?

In mono:

Or is this in stereo?

Whatever.  Wherever.  We/they parade.  We are observed.  We want to be seen.  But walls have eyes:

The whole world is watching:

Whether we like it, or not:

In an empty room:

Or on the busy street:

And those doing the watching are being watched back:

With that wariness that goes with our instinctive caution. We are not as far removed from the wild as we think:

Characters in a painted scene, subsumed into an unreal reality:

Innocents, like children, ignorant of the greater picture:

Until we come face to face with two dimensions:

Caught sightlessly in the slightly blurry depths of our graininess:

Frayed by uncertainty:

Or framed by the herring-bones of our anxieties:

Or, perhaps, trapped inside our reflections, mummified by doubts:

Until (if we are fortunate?) age begins to allow us to unravel (in comparison with youth):

And we stumble into the cracks between the paving stones, head scarves, shawls and plastic bags protecting us against the unwanted:

And in the meantime, she is still there, on the corner, in her shrouds, her eyes signifying life, seeking solace perhaps, consuming the cruel world around us as the noisy vortex rips past unconcerned.....

I wish her love.

*****

On a quiet street where old ghosts meet

I see her walking now,

And away from me so hurriedly

My reason must allow.

That I had loved, not as I should

A creature made of clay,

When the angel woos the clay, he'll lose

His wings at the dawn of day.

On Raglan Road

from a poem by Patrick Kavanagh

As sung by Luke Kelly

********

Let grief be a fallen leaf

At the dawning of the day

*****

With thanks to Simon Ellingworth for his inspiration 

and to Michael for his company