Written for the DfT Transport Strategy call for ideas February 2025.
The street’s a temple all aglow
With lights the priest did calculate
For efficiency and flow
Seconds priced at the going rate
No time to spare to stand and see
The mother, still, beside the rumbling on
She’s come back here, another year
With flowers, and time, and date, and name
To remember
What she could not forget
The priest’s long gone
To work on his next business case
How many productive unlost seconds
Could she accept?
To pay the price of coming here
Year after year
When did we sign up to this faith?
That leads our children to the altar
They learn their duty
To protect their bodies
By mark and sign of a cross
The green code belt with braces of hi-vis
They recite rules and colour in their signs
To stay unhurt, to stay alert
Stay out of harm’s way
They beg and plead on bended knee
Please slow down
Please think of me
The priest and patron smile together
The lesson’s been well learnt
Relieved no-one will point to them
The day one more gets hurt
But as they process about
There’s clattering at the door
Children’s voices raised and raucous
A ball flies in
The priest’s nose wrinkles in irritation
“Where’s their respect for our hard work?
Don’t they know it’s for their good?”
And the patron’s knuckles tighten, whiten
Holding firmer grip
It’s his reflex when he worries
That his interests start to slip
There’s chanting now and hammering
And as they peer outside
The doors are plastered patchwork
With crayon drawings of the worlds
These feral ones conceive
Streets of football, trees to climb
And candyfloss and rockets
Bicycles and balloons and mountains made of chocolate
And when it comes to words
They forgot to plead and bow
Nailed up just one demand
Safe streets now!
Another ball bounces off
The tall and solid door
Tipping the neon mitre from his head
“You can join in, Mister
Or can you get out the way?”
Photo by Anna Zakharova on Unsplash