From this hill
From my high spot on this hill
I could take each tiny car
that crawls in military procession
up the chartered carriageway.
I’d pick a whole handful,
screeching and puffing in protest,
and remove them from my landscape.
Then the buildings: first the buzzing
supermarket and then the boutiques—
columns of regimented brickwork
all dismissed. These blank spaces
I’d fill with real, untouched life:
bursting and blooming on each street,
pushing through pavement cracks.
From up here I could turn lamp posts
into young trees—thin and delicate
with new life; houses would become hills,
streets streams, roads rivers. I’d pluck out
those distant pylons, erase human sound.
Each breath, each precious piece of life
would belong to the hills.
