the city where your dreamling is re-paid

Andrew Motion:

O travellers from somewhere else to here

Rising from Sheffield Station and Sheaf Square

To wander through the labyrinths of air,

Pause now, and let the sight of this sheer cliff

Become a priming-place which lifts you off

To speculate

What if..?

What if..?

What if..?

Cloud shadows drag their hands across the white;

Rain prints the sudden darkness of its weight;

Sun falls and leaves the bleaching evidence of light.

Your thoughts are like this too: as fixed as words

Set down to decorate a blank facade

And yet, as words are too, all soon transferred

To greet and understand what lies ahead -

The city where your dreamling is re-paid,

The lives which wait unseen as yet, unread.