As Safe As Houses... Poem by Denis Martindale

I look out the front window now and then
and am thankful I needn't go out as much,
so I can be free of being soaked to the skin,
or watching my umbrella crumple upwards
against the coming force of the storm.
I'm not facing snowflakes or hailstones,
or walking and slipping on the frosted snow.

As a child who walked to school,
I sometimes walked the snow-capped streets
and shivered as the warm air left my mouth
to become the misty outpourings of my breath.
Same again, when walking to work, yet knowing
that after the cold weather twilight ordeal,
I still had to do my day job or my shift
and sometimes overtime, too.

I'll never forget one night when walking home,
through the 2 foot high snow that had settled
and that stayed compressed upon the ground
and every single step forward was laboured,
like a forced up and down process to finally get home...

Nor will I ever forget when working as a petrol attendant,
forced out of the office shelter to the unprotected gas pump,
standing there, getting drenched, filling up a car tank,
while the rain smashed against me without mercy,
nor the guys in the car, when they laughed at my predicament.
But, of course, that was the job, fair weather or foul.

Now that I am home most of the time,
perhaps I can laugh at them outside,
sometimes caught in the rain...
But knowing how that felt,
I pity them...


Denis Martindale, February 2016.