Sky Stands Still

The sky stands still while cars zoom slowly by,
A scene painted in tranquillity with the volume muted,
Seven swallows’ wings flap silently in formation,
Working together like a beautifully well-oiled machine,
Not something one sees everyday.

The sun peaks a select few rays around the clouds,
Groping for a place to shine without being too bright,
Children clasp parents’ hands for fear of falling,
Youthful innocence taken away one year earlier all the time,
A terrible truth in a changing world.

The train roars underneath the bridge, shattering reveries,
Carrying people to destinations they could walk to if they tried,
Two individuals stroll separately from the local church,
The grip of religion dying bit-by-bit, day-by-day,
An acceptance of its diminished role growing with age.

The wind whips up the Autumn leaves in golden turrets,
Little tornadoes brushing off society’s various visages,
Some of whom deal in the dark with hands well hidden,
Hoods thrown over the masks circumstance has given them,
Their true faces lost beneath the corruption money brings.

And all the while the sky stands resolutely still with a shifting scowl,
Day and night, the only thing here not to have changed with time.

(I was collecting my little brother Conor from school - as I came over the Hump-back Bridge heading into Baldoyle I looked at the sky and it looked like a perfect painting).