Tumbleweed

Olympic travel chaos as M4 reopening delayed

The Telegraph, 11 July 2012

I was drawn to a stillness

like Christmas in the snow at dawn

and held in thrall by the sight

of wild daisies sprouting

from a crack in the elevated stretch

of the M4 from Heathrow.

Spectators crowded round

to gawp like the dead reborn

in a spontaneous communion

of awed disbelief.

We expected bedlam.

We expected to be over-run.

We expected to be crowded

off our own streets

and out of our homes.

We have conscripted an army.

We have posted lookouts

and placed machine gun pods

on the rooftops of schools

and old people’s homes.

We demanded gas masks,

the council gave us phrase books.

We look up and find no words

for what we see, for henge,

for relic, for tumbleweed.

(c) Slush Poet