That’s Life

Far from the scent of the crocus
And the pavanne of Scottish daffodils
A loud crash was heard in Princes Street.
Safe from the steady gaze
Of the grey carrara marble Scott
A jabbering unknown tramp had died.
One could certainly doubt it
But the blood was fresh
Enough to say he lived
Once. A peering crowd of blanket faces
Did not ponder if he loved,
Or had been loved, instead
They wondered at how far ahead
In life they were. Were they more
Than one rung up the ladder of life?
Yet their strange obsession with his death
Charged it with more meaning than his life.
Were they in any way superior
To the thing within
Old and tattered clothes?
Who in that smiling crowd would want
To guess beside the loud
Crash of buses, private cars and men
A solitary member of the human race had died
And not diminished life?
And if they had been the one
Would anything have stopped?
Being apart from them
It was not, they thought, a part
Of them. And when policemen took the few
Details of the case, facts
Conveyed to them
That the lifeless ones in life
Caused much more trouble than they were worth.
They were wrong: their minds blinded
By a candle flame of thought.
There was a man
But he was bespoken for.