‘Light of Ages’

Derelict but showing signs of life (a used condom, cigarette ends, empty blue syringe) a station platform high on a hill overlooking the City and its skyline of high-rises, office blocks and homes of industry and commerce, the sound of the traffic lifting and floating to the platform like the humming of an exotic bird, the buzz of a million killer bees. Alight Here For Railway Museum (what museum?) industrial estate, Asian taxi driver, greyness and waste in the gutter, rotting organic debris and diesel. Don’t light a match. And the storm is approaching, from this vantage point the city has a lid of mauve stratocumulus creeping downwards in milky ribbons pregnant with rain. But in this desolation and the chill, three rays of sun break through the cloud, great shafts of light, like heaven’s ladder, or an alien beam, spotlight the city miles apart, the whole sight is infinity.


© Lauren McCarthy 2006