Vanishing Point

Far beyond the supermarket workers and the gardeners building their own allotments, the boy soldiers and the coal-miners with dusty lungs, the women helping mould silver bullets for wars and the ministers off with their leather bound Bibles walking through jungles, past the jolly sailor, the fish-wife and the cook. All carrying their little note book. The blacksmith and the hunter come back again, over the gulf to hunt through the flamey caves, with their knife and the deer. And somewhere further afield, the star shines bright, the clasp fastens together our tiny pearls, egg to egg through the mother. A cluster of gemstones rolled, and still rolling, milky marbles on every continent's slant floors, hungry snowballs, gathering photos of diamonds, postcards and jobs, gathering qualifications, silver-grey hairs and snubs, and forgetting, as those who came before us forgot, to bless those who brought us here, who passed us the torch and stepped back. Now we are brighter flames, but not with fire, with the beauty of knowledge.