Somewhere just West of Limehouse
An emptied yard has lain and slept
Among the brick and rubble
Are promises the poppies kept,
To bloom between the foundation slab,
To stretch between the mortar,
Beneath the girders of the bridge
Beside the dockstill water.
They flourish in obedience
To a hundred-year-old-seed,
They quench with a silk-soft moment
An ancient personal need.
If you rode on a train and saw no life,
No bloom of weed or rose,
Then how would you know you were living
And how would you do what you chose?
Unless the flowers chose to rise
From the rubble where a warehouse stood
We’d have no daily proof of how
Ruins turn good.