Sadness Poem by Emlyn Wentwhistle

Each morning,
sometimes on the east side,
sometimes on the west side of the street,
I walk the quiet five minute stretch
between the Polish cafe and my place of work.
The sun at that time of day touches neither,
so there's little to distinguish between the two.
And with the shutters down
on the blistered shop fronts
there's little you'd want to see anyway.
The final destination is in any case
always the same.
So I wonder what inscrutable force
propels me each morning along one or other path,
sometimes the same as the day before,
sometimes not.

This morning
(on the east side of the street)
I raised my gaze
from the scuffs on the toes of my shoes
to find myself
looking into the face of a girl
with the saddest of eyes.
And in that unremarkable instant
of fleeting reciprosity
I thought I saw
all the sadness of her past
and understood the thing
that had made her sad.
I even saw
the future sadness
of the sad eyed children
she was yet to bear.
And I knew too
that in writing it all down,
as I knew I should,
the same momentary sadness I now felt for her,
indeed the beautiful sadness of all our futures
would stay with me forever.