Smashed

"Have no fear," I said as I strode over the flooded park.
School kids were ganneting chocolate bars, hooting like wildfowl,
while the wildfowl were motionless, desolate, stark,
and just stared at the lake like Oliver at his bowl.
It was winter and the lake was beginning to ice
as the Canada geese, reviewing the situation,
the thin and fuzzy rushes, completing a quick analysis
ticked off the pros and cons of economic emigration—
though the sun still managed a spark on a muddy bottle,
reminding me of my own mind, on the blink
(also, we were broke, both drained, both a bit brittle;
both of us once had been up to our necks in drink).
"If the fates would see us ragged and shattered, that's fine!
Just have no fear"—this urged from behind a jagged smile.
But the pep-talk felt ancient as, in truth, I'd lost my shine:
neurosis, you see, had been at my teeth with its file.
Was anyone free of anxiety? How should I know!
Bleak birds hung like my own doubting hmms on the huge
gusts of wind over the trees lined up as suspects in a row
as the estate rose on the horizon like a prison barge
and I turned away. But in doing so, in the mud and ice
the smashed glass turned kaleidoscopic in the sun
and the light on the fractive lines looked up like lively eyes
so I thought of a place, a bright space, where children
in attentive groups are a delighted audience who focus
on the bright red balls of the miseries we juggle.
There was plenty of room for enjoyment in that locus
and the tricky enterprise was easy, no trouble.

(Grahame Park, Barnet, Winter 2000)