What strikes us
is the stillness.
It’s a common place:
“above us only sky.”
The beach just keeps on going:
the sand shows the traces
of a kid who scribbled “Poo!”
inside playful speech balloons
again, and again, and again.
You have to stand there
to understand.
The men are stilll
with their feet buried,
they can’t smell but
in the distance lookalikes
copy them with tripods and lenses
walking dogs, getting fit,
there are no waves.
Some tankers pass by slowly.
The men are standing
facing beyond, up straight,
cold and covered in scars left
by other living organisms.
This is all about the tide
and the wind, the expanse of land,
the vastness of the sky.
Here are the iron men,
ageing monuments rooted to
the landscape which is theirs,
ghostly like people,
but harder, alone amongst
all the others,
with chests and legs pierced
by painful solid pipes,
dreaming of one day
reaching faraway lands.
Instead they go farther, deeper,
without moving.
Eventually they drown.
The next morning they are still at it,
waiting for another day.
Until a sea of time
swallows them completely.
