Another city, another coffee shop,
just a stone’s throw from home.
Windows steaming, squawking chatter
Leaf-bare trees, pilloried, pollarded,
hem a cobbled square,
empty, but for a mob of grumpy pigeons
Street lights ooze into a sky
sapped of colour,
like ink on blotting paper
Sparse sunlight,
muffled by gloomy rainclouds,
dawdles into darkness
Headlights reflect off slick streets.
Heads bob by,
encased in knitted tea-cosies
Coats, scarves, bags, boots
in winter tones of black and grey
are all the rage
Buses queue at the kerb
to swallow and disgorge
and slide away, sated.
I meditate on friends far away,
In a technicolour land,
as my coffee gets cold…
…but time passes,
and the barren trees become blotted
with clusters of pink popcorn
Skies brighten into cornflower blue,
blemished only by soft, white clouds
and the sword-like streak of contrails
On once-bare branches
new-born leaves unfurl
and droop like lime-green bats
Bird song speckles the air,
from the first whisper of rose-pink dawn
‘til the blood-orange sun slips below the trees
Trousers walk the streets
in garish colours that require
the protection of sunglasses
Colour returns to a monochrome world