Friday, one week on from the terrible events in Paris, and still trying to make sense of it all…

Titles

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if
whilst idly turning pages
in an anthology
absorbing titles and maybe
the shape of a poem,
though not the essence
or its density or detail,
or if,
whilst wandering through a gallery
gazing at the small print beside paintings –
the name, the date,
and passing the frame
with only the vaguest impression of colour,
blasted by the hurry of our own small needs,
but leaving behind
points of light, the point
of those magical brushstrokes,
wouldn’t it be wonderful if
we might come to understand
what it truly is
to be human, the complexities
and, perhaps, how we owe it to ourselves
to pause, to delve a little, to learn,
like now, thinking about
the world
and all its rage
and titles that say something
but are only a small indication of the whole
inclining us to prejudice:
Syria, Islam, Daesh,
Iraq, Refugee, Terror.