Bruce McRae - Street Scene

Bruce McRae - Street Scene

 

 

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician currently residing on Salt Spring Island BC, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with over 1,600 poems published internationally in magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. His books are ‘The So-Called Sonnets’ (Silenced Press); ‘An Unbecoming Fit Of Frenzy’; (Cawing Crow Press); ‘Like As If’ (Pski’s Porch); ‘Hearsay’ (The Poet’s Haven).

 

 

 

Street Scene

 

 

On a street the name of which eludes me.

In a town of little import, one day in the past,

a summer’s day, like countless days that have been before,

comes the sound of weeping through an open window,

the one with the flowerbox painted blue, curtains fluttering

as only curtains in a summer breeze will do.

Weeping, and music on a radio, an indistinguishable tune.

And a cat on a stoop, licking its paw and unconcerned

with cause and effect, untouched by the vicissitudes of emotion.

Weeping, so a passerby may stop to listen briefly, pausing

to consider the bulk of human despair, the immensity of sorrow,

before carrying on in a world in which we all must wander.

It is an errand of some great importance.