I sat down by the River Thames and wept.
I sat down by the dirty water,
by the jangled waves. The Roman ghosts,
the abandoned plastics, the obscured,
occluded depths, the swirling
silt, like smoke beneath the surface,
like the reflection of smoke
dispersing through the sky – from
a pyre maybe, a burning body
on heaped logs, transforming
into fire, the undetermined element:
pure energy, pure moment,
that is and is not,
that has no substance but burns,
devours, cleans, gives light,
and leaves nothing but ashes behind.