Faces

Faces,
white as cumulus,
people the clouds;
expressions drift
with the weather;
a dark nimbus
shadows their eyes.

Faces
like the stations
of the cross;
mysterious termini,
sanctified waiting rooms,
inbound, outbound,
end-of-the-line;
all our journeys
stalled and motionless.

Faces,
the soul’s expectations,
small print on the eyelids,
the typography of hope
(how it comes to be or rises
above the rattle of machinery)
travel alone or without it,
arrive in bleak night,
destination unknown.

Faces,
size, shape, colour, skin,
clothing, shoe-leather, strides,
a hobbled gait shuffled along a queue,
walk, don’t walk, walk, don’t run,
gathered, ticketed, all aboard,
ready for the beginning.

But…

all flesh
is the same,
still waiting
for change
beyond the glass,
beyond the screen.

© BH, 2019

---

On the Glasgow bus and before boarding I tried to look at the people there, read them and their faces. So many, travelling hopefully, arriving, going back. All carrying their sturdy lives like a kind of luggage, baggage, possibilities, necessaries, fripperies. Everything wanted on the voyage. Some of it stowed away below. Everything, moving. Everything but the kitchen sink.