These Are The Signs

These are the signs of the cross.

A half empied bottle of screw top wine

in the bus shelter by the blighted terminus,

child's new shoes wildly discarded

in the hedge beside the closed down shops.

This detritus the thorns in the crown

of an unrenowned people, the frowned upon

and tossed aside, the derided and the weak.

These are the tales never told,

the losses uncounted for those who were

bold in their way but never rose above,

hawks and doves in poor British backstreets.

A single crutch laid down at a sad angle

in the cul de sac where no one roams at night,

the fear and the quiet, an un miraculous sight.

But these signs surely speak

of a journey made.

These are the stations of the lost,

your town corners and signposts to places unchanged

in decades under the built up gloss.

Scant possessions by the roadside,

given as a penance, discarded for no gods.

Those who don't know they're doing so

whisper abstract prayer by the streetlights

and the tabarnacle piller box.

Secret selves convene and speak with saints

unseen between the unkempt hedges.

This is my belief that all these marks

betoken more, the delerium of hope,

in this shaken place, forgotten boroughs,

where grace blossoms behind a thin veil.

These are the signs of the cross,

for unbelievers like me and others,

the vast breath showing the way each day.

These are the signs in the summer parks,

markers in faded avenues, closed soul streets.

These are the stations, relays, beacons,

for those who will never be always lost

and tossed aside by those who tell

them what they are not.