Those Benches You Don't Use Poem by Jean Bernard Parr

They are getting closer
those benches you don't use
you know the ones, they look out
over the town in odd corners
that's what they do
theres one on that sloping scrap
of green where everyone knows
you stop the bus
some have slats missing and are
squeezed between bleak pebbledash
shops patronised by the whining
tied up dog, others grander
with memorial plaques
windswept with a harbour view-
the orange sweetwrapper lifeboat
and its crew whithin granite hug
of the sea wall

They wait for me, those benches
you don't use, when the
twinkling bicycle wheel grinds
its last mile and the spokes grow dull
when forward motion is less
I hope to be alert and on watch
among clicking bulrushes, where
the warship grey heron is on guard
and me, silent trespasser
entranced, painted with
summer soft shadows
still breathing and still here