Mudslide

As if in the usual
geologic rearrangement,
this erosion: le Big Mac, the new kepi
on our ticket-collector.
 
Differences smudged between
age groups – teenagers
turn parents, parents stay children.
The sediment
 
of Caffè Uno, Deep Pan, Gap among
any distinctive
High Street shops, which
close
 
for a blind time before
consolidating into
Oxfam, Age Concern, Cancer Relief
Mind…
 
Not the gradual
weathering down a breadth
of eras, Precambrian, Mesozoic.
No. A mudslide
 
yielding to the pull
of gravity; in minutes denuding
a mountain,
which blocks a river canyon
 
with a wall, debris 400 feet thick –
which forms a dam, while the water
in its usual way
rushes on.

Margaret Wilmot

published in Assent, 63/3 Feb-Mar 2010<