I HAVE strolled past many times

On my way to the splendid pier

To watch the Channel jewel-sparkle in the sun.

I scrutinise an old postcard

Showing the London and Provincial Bank

Its employees long passed into history

In different days before the First World War

And now their graves not visited any more.

A nanny drifts by like a ghost

Pushing a baby whose life has come and gone

Reminding me of the transience of being.

The people in the photograph are all forgotten

Few cars clogged up Windsor Road back then

There’s a sign pointing to the baths and beach

Oh, the past is so strange and out of reach

As if trying to grasp the sun with your hand.

There is a couple walking far down the road

And a figure half hidden behind the street lamp.

Their clothes would be so uncomfortable now

But staring at a modern postcard here

Future generations would laugh at our attire

Faces frozen in time from long before

In their graves...not visited any more.

Guy Fletcher

Pantmawr

Cardiff