'Nothing Special' by Giles Constable

We are nothing special you and I.

No one stops to stare when I place

my hand in yours and our mild spats pass

unreported on the local evening news.

No ceremony marks our new made peace.

Planes do not deviate from their paths

when we sigh and our laughter rings out

only locally. When we are fond

there follows no great display,

no festivals, no decoration of the sky.

An absence of applause reliably greets

our walk around the park, the occasion

of our return to the house no cause

for expulsion of diplomats, threats

of sanctions, border skirmishes, debate

in international courts. Nothing we have done

will become a meme. We are often watching TV.

You and I. Two amidst the billions here,

gone. We share the same geography,

same limited range of notes, of song.

Yet these experiments in how to live

are ours alone, as these words,

each one worn down, so often

shaped by breath, by use, by time

but, since language was begun,

never set down exactly like this.

Now I have them caught,

not extraordinary but even so,

here they are, set in place thus.

Joined in this sequence, just for us.

All Rights. Giles Constable.

Giles Constable had intended to write. He is approaching 60 and realised recently that he had therefore better get on with it. He lives in London and is preoccupied with time, love, death and ornithology.