Sutherland Avenue

All the way down Sutherland Avenue
Late summer high winds blow the plane trees wild,
Grey branches creaking like the hulls
Of decommissioned ships,
Shimmying leaves louder than a freight train.
Sutherland Avenue!
Long and lovely like the London roads
You walk in your sleep, bursting
With nostalgia for all the times you nearly had
A good time here, and here.

 
I set my stride to outpace the wistful in myself,
I think it’s the warmth of summer winds,
The scent of other people’s lives,
Traffic and debris and birdsong,
A correlation between my footsteps and
Those of others - today, last week, forever
That makes me happy, together with the thought of
City as plot and lyric and song,
Each flat, each house - a novel, a poem in itself.
But the wind in the plane trees most of all.