Across The Platform

Stephen Fry suggested a poetry exercise where you take a classic poem structure and use it to structure a poem of your own (I'm sure other people have suggested this too). So I found one and wrote this, which is based on actual events on Doncaster Station when I was waiting on a train bound for Leeds in October 2017. I knew I should have written down the original, but now I can't find it. I think it was either Keats or Wordsworth, and I've gone for a Romantics feel to the poem.

Across The Platform

She stands so tranquil yet it seems
a low conceit disturbs her dreams;
A vision locked in time's swift stream
and so she waits.
Around her stillness masses teem
in surging spate.

Her elegance, her careful pose
In her fair cheeks a hint of rose
So many pass but no-one knows
for whom she waits;
Yet in her eyes the sadness shows
her inner trait.

Across the platform her sad eyes
invite the questions - what or why?
What secret does her peace deny?
Why does she wait?
What form of wicked destiny
would God create?

We drew apart; just one last glance
but I remained without the chance
to find out if some sad romance
had sealed her fate
and could not break her mournful trance.
So still she waits.

Tim Fellows 2018