From seven floors up
The view is spectacular
Just an ordinary day in autumn
The nearby trees still in full leaf.

Squirrels on their same crazy journey
Using branches, as if vertical stepping stones
Clearly convinced each leading step
As important to their future.

Further, beyond the nearby trees
The Park, serene in its beauty
Its lake lazily still shimmering
Decades, have past like this.

Swans, ducks, Canada geese
Foxes, tadpoles, sycamores and oaks
All resplendent in their seasonal cloaks
Even the grass will, for decades more, last.

Only last night, a cloudless sky
There in bright opalescence – the moon
Westerly shining, flooding my flowering balcony
Silently, still without a hint of wind.

As I look- over in the near distance
The “Isle of Dogs”, skyscrapers –
Obscene wealth, grossly ostentatious
“Canary Tower” with its diffused light roof.

The Shard, the HSBC towering – The Gherkin
So many other buildings, resplendent in opulence
Bragging statements of achievements
Those achievements, blinded to ordinary people.

Thousands of negotiations, limited triumphs
Deals, handshakes, nods of acquiesces
Millions, upon millions, committed to greed
What does it all mean, where will it all lead?

The future is obscure, opaque to dreamers
Those squirrels though, they don’t care
Billions of pounds, dollars even gemstones
Might rot, before they could object.

Life moves on, as it always does
Sometimes lying politicians – rogues of obscurity
Moving in arrogance, as if innocent
Only more time, will tell their future.

Mike