Watching worlds go by
I see the forgotten corners,
Hiding in plain view
Behind the backs of factories
Beyond the boarded doors
Walled around by busy lives
Enclosed within the crumbling bricks
Their purposes forgotten.
Just over that wall
Is hustle and bustle,
Manufacturing and retail,
Orders given, jokes told, human activity in full flow.
Here is a sort of peace
For these corners are inaccessible, unreachable,
guarded by solid walls and wire fences and by their own unimportance
Overlooked, passed by, unthought of, uncared for.
Life springs up here,
In various quiet ways.
A bush, a tree, some blades of grass
Growing through cracked asphalt,
Past the cans and plastic bags.
Entire little universes
Where unknown lives of birds and beetles,
Rats and cats and little burrowing things
Have their own existence,
Quite apart from ours.
Other worlds exist,
In our forgotten corners
Other kingdoms, other lives,
Parallel universes.
And we have our own forgotten corners
The little parts of life
Walled off, half forgotten,
Thoughts and dreams and hopes and fears and failed plans,
Left to pursue their own existence,
Whilst we go on with ours.
I see the forgotten corners of the world
From my moving window.
And I wonder if anyone knows
The forgotten corners in me.