The Plane Trees of Sutherland Avenue

All the way down Sutherland Avenue
Late summer high winds blow the plane trees wild,
Grey branches creaking like the hulls
Of decommissioned ships,
Shimmying leaves louder than a freight train.
Sutherland Avenue!
Long and lovely like the London roads
You walk in your sleep, bursting
With nostalgia for all the times you nearly had
A good time here, and here.
I set my stride to outpace the wistful in myself,
I think it’s the warmth of summer winds
The scent of other people’s lives,
Traffic and debris and birdsong,
A correlation between my footsteps and
Those of others - today, last week, forever
That makes me happy, together with the thought of
City as plot and lyric and song,
Each flat, each house - a novel, a poem in itself.
But the wind in the plane trees most of all.