Poetry

The View from Here

David Chandler

Why are they crowded near the monument?

From this high up the shouting sounds

like rain or whispering. What’s going on?

We ought to ask someone
but it’s much safer here,
we have each other, don’t we,
and our glasses of white wine.
Those people on the boulevard
bob up and down
like flotsam on a wave, besieging us

as we look down on them—

but what would happen if we asked them up?