Communicator

It stands, tall and slender
Ornate signal-sender
Or sculpture expressing an alien race
Who came and created
Then, banished or sated
Departed, left this (this alone?) in their place.

On wet sand before it
The gulls, who ignore it:
The only things living exposed to the eye
In a seascape insistent
That its secrets stay distant
As the huge ring-clad planet aslant in the sky.

Those rock forms whose spiring
Traps sunlight whose firing
Adds varnish of warmth to the chill of the air
May merely be faking
The hint that their making
Was architectonic, aesthetic, aware.

Now ponder the meaning:
This sign intervening
Between what is known and what hovers beyond
Is the art or the science
The exquisite appliance
Through which we interpret, absorb and respond.

Simon MacCulloch lives in London and is a regular contributor to Reach Poetry, The Dawntreader and Sarasvati.

Find more by Simon MacCulloch in the Author Index.