Nights And Days (In Answer To T.S. Eliot) Poem by Gert Strydom

I

The summer day draws to a end
with its last light spent
with blaring television sets,
at the racetrack, people checking their last bets
children playing in passageways
that had seen better days
and in city block after city block
with flower pots being displayed
on balconies
the rain patters down
and time stretches to seven o’clock
in another rundown town
where vagrants stand under trees in vacant lots
trying to shelter against the rainy breeze
as human beings with spirits, stripped gone
when the streetlamps go on
one after another first flickering
and prostitutes indiscreetly start to walk the streets
rather gay and alluring.

II

The early morning light
shines bright through open windows
and unfamiliar couples awake next to each other
do not even know each other’s names
and do not bother to kiss goodbye
in apartments and houses where the smell of sex,
champagne, beer or wine is still lingering
from the nightly escapades
and the blue sky shimmers with freshness.

III

Alone in a city apartment,
one among hundreds of others,
you lit a candle and solitary
have a candlelight dinner
with sparkling sherry
in a long glass
and are really beautiful
with big dark eyes,
a pear shaped face
and soft tender lips
and think how sweet
it would have been
if you had some company
and life stretches out almost endlessly
with going to work, your duties there
and coming home to an empty flat
and downstairs the Nigerians
are having another all-night party
with music thumping
through the floor,
the next-door neighbour
is again having a row
with his fiancée or wife
and they are slamming doors
and life is going on
in the same way
that it usually does.

IV

Somewhere up high, beyond the endless sky,
beyond the universe, the Lord is looking down
at every city, every single town
seeing every person
and even their thoughts, personal, private,
lascivious or serene
becomes part of His understanding
of human beings.

[Reference: Preludes by T.S. Eliot.]