JOURNEY WOMAN 2

JOURNEY WOMAN
Seema Gill

So she came to the wide, wide land of glories
To win her life
The chains had not been broken
The chains of the past that bind us all
Their roots, sucking deep into our souls
Posturing and prodding, nurturing
Even now, in this city of cultural extremes
Steep roads, on a hill overlooking the famous cemetery.
A wonderful place of rest, resplendent in reflected glory,
where obelisks point high to a hopeful God
and the bones of merchants lay in tombs fit for Caesar.
Where undergrowth spreads gothically in the unexplored parts.
Vast expanses of bramble bushes arched over like cathedrals
providing the perfect hiding places for insects,
spiders, small animals and dope dealers,
Like the underworld spreading through this city
of intolerance and separation,
of fear and suspicion,
of words that should not be spoken, of issues that cannot be raised
for fear of that midnight knock,
of segmented ghost towns which lie cheek by jowl
with the net curtain clipped accents,
of gypsies and thieves, of long gone Germans and Irish men
who rolled up their sleeves and dug those canals,
those flat, straight works of art,
Of Asian nightshift workers who toiled on dangerous machines,
Of penniless Ugandans who dragged themselves up by their bootstraps,
Of fading trolley lines and fumed up bottlenecks,
Of sixties white elephants and exotic back alleys.
This city has it all.
It’s where they burnt the book against the words of the Prophet
Where cappuccino drinkers admire Hockney,
Where Charlotte and Emily penned their rugged books
on moors that look down from their parallel world.
This city where she continues her search.
Why here? For what reason?
For one, she came here to clear the forest of grief
To let the eagles of violence fly away