The Nothing Hour

Once upon a time I would have written a poem, but instead I simply looked at the shags - some grooming, some sleeping on the jetty in the Thames. They had a sense of time about them. The waters of the river racing along below them as the tide slipped away, the tide of people rising as the hour of the weekend approached. It was Friday.

I do not know when the shags came to rest upon their perches; I did not stay to find out when they left; it was time un-packaged, awaiting no delivery, un-stacked, not waiting. This came to call itself the "nothing hour"; I a lone traveller standing on the bank forgetting where I was going beside a flock of sea birds with nowhere to go.

This, the nothing hour, is what our lives are made from. We layer, we mould, we struggled and fuss to paint over it, draw its edges, mow its lawns, build upon it, try to befriend it with dinners and drinks, hang the fairy lights of love from its boughs but it is never amused it simply watches and wonders when we will be seated and calm.