[This prose poem was one of the last I wrote before leaving England for Brazil]

Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash

Electricity Pylons (c. 1993)

Nothing befits an English landscape more pleasingly than lines of electricity pylons. Leisurely they hold up 50,000 volts like clothes on a washing-line. Some, for instance on the edge of motorways, are so large they could comfortably accommodate a small herd of sheep or goats in the area described by their feet. The  perimeter rimmed with barbed wire. Others contort themselves into bizarre shapes, like the faithful at some charismatic worship. Various as the letters of an ancient alphabet. Or uniform, converge in lines of increasing frequency, like dockers looking for work, to unload their cargo at the power station. 

Each one is a miniature Eiffel Tower that cannot be brought back from Paris as a souvenir. Nor are many honored by representation in picture postcards. Having legs and a sort of head and work to do, they are almost human. They are human, since they serve no purpose but to serve us. Have no place in nature. Which is why nature so gladly accepts their decoration. No uglier than tinsel on a Christmas tree. No more menacing than cartoon monsters stomping innocently over England’s green farmlands.

*

And perhaps, one day, these steel beasts of burden will become obsolete. Most will then be tugged down without a thought and used for scrap. But the odd one, will through chance or neglect, be left standing. Will rust; fall into disrepair. Shorn of its load and its vital bond with its co-workers, will become a monument. Will become an attraction for future tourists, who will come, like Winckelmann or Byron to admire and speculate upon the forgotten function of this rusting megalith.