observation

We used to dream of bigger things.
Remember the space-age look-out booth
we hoisted up that needle tower, to see
what starlings praised in flight?
The view up there was cycloramic
across the Downs, across the Channel
along the coast to Littlehampton.
The future, though, remained unsighted
Parcelled up and sold on trust; so
when it came it shook the world,
disturbed the stones beneath our feet
and brought us down to slighted earth.
Now the numbers seem so sad.
One-hundred and fifty metres high
Sixty tonnes of glass and steel – trapped
In our imagination. Like an interrupted dream.
Come then and mock the folly of plans.
Roll up and jeer at the screwball gall,
the brazen, pie-in-the-sky nerve of it all.
That panoramic pod. If that’s what helps.