Grey days

Grey Days
Grey days, bleak skies full of doom,
                       Shadowy figures, lost in the gloom,
                       mist blowing in from the becalmed silent ocean,
Like an old faded `movie`-played in slow motion,
this `candy floss` carpet rolls out down the streets
engulfing all in it’s path as the daylight it `eats`.
Mist in a churchyard hovering over the graves
a bare tree. Laden with moisture, the winter’s day braves,
Tombstones, like sentinels standing so proud
the names long forgotten it does them enshroud.
See in the hedgerow, spiders` webs encrusted.
With last night’s frost, have been lightly dusted.
Washing, left out on the line overnight
Now like petrified objects, frozen in fright,
And underfoot mother earth she does sleep,
as `crispy` footsteps hurry, appointments to keep.
Indoors,. Looking out on this ghostly scene
Young children do peer. and a small area clean,
Rub on the pane, a hole in the condensation,
Firing their thoughts, awakening imagination,
And over the rooftops smoke trickles out
From a lone chimney, like steam from a spout
Of an olde copper kettle, once by the fireside there
Casting spectral shadows in the firelight’s glare,
and, from a time gone by, visions unveils
Of horse drawn carriages, top hats and tails,
Narrow streets, cobbled stone, the luminous glow of gas lamp,
People scurrying round in the cold and the damp,
Then somewhere in the mists came the sound
Of a `bobby’s` whistle (as villains did abound
in those ideal conditions they could drop out of sight,
in an inkling, in that half day, half night.)

Grey days, bleak skies, full of the unknown
Ethereal echoes on the whisper wind blown,
days such as these encourage reflection
on the sheer diversity of nature’s perfection.
Jennifer Kersey 1993.