Skopje - Tough city

Graham W. Reid (United Kingdom)

This town's is constatnt turmoil.
Why look at me like that?
It is. The birds, in sunset flocks,
share the unrest, and arch
but barely skim the top of blocks
of flats and offices and shops.
Our panic, our uncertainty
is theirs, and theirs is ours.
It's mirror-imaged
in that instante glance,
challenge all unreherased,
that says: How do you dare?
None of us rightly knows
which pavements or which roads,
dug up, have undermined
the certainty, security
we had until today -
Till when? Until again
the earthworks, the upheavals came,
left in their wake new chasms
abysms that reave away
our yesterday from this today.

I wonder, ask myself - and who
does not; don't you too, now and then?
if I can find a way
about this town in turmoil.
And yet, for heaven's sake,
if twilight starlings can
with but the odd mistake,
so can I, can we, can you
find a way all around,
a way right through uncharted streets,
down alleyways, 'cross vacant lots
where life in streaming rivers flows
in this or any other town
in turmoil as this is.

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