The dappled grey concrete

          Resisits each weary step

As I trudge along in the hot afternoon sun

This unyielding pathway, travelled by so many

          Bearing few traces of its long life

          Covered by the detritus of years

Each step I take on it stays unrevealed

          No print is left upon the dappled greyness

          No telling that I was ever there

          Nor personal signs of any other

This dull patch of greyness has only the life it is offered

          By the hot sun of the day that heats it

          By the rains that bathe it

And the cold nights that chill it

Not like the life that lives within me

          But both of us weather all the same

          As we grudgingly earn our greyness

Soon I will no longer leave unseen footprints

          But it will continue to bear the steps of others

          Not for eternity, but for an age at least

Navvies with bronzed bodies will come and go

          With noisy machines that hammer and break its core

          Who dig below its solid base and change its face

One day it will disappear

Broken up to yield to the new

Or abandoned to be covered over

As the civilisation passes

And new footsteps will travel over it unknowingly

And those who trod on it will be soon forgotten.