I scrambled up the rope that dangled
from a hole in the clouds
and reached a place beyond thinking
in the brain and centre of all things
of where It All Begins
and saw
a world like any other
with broken things, broken systems
and broken people
people damaged by things broken
A country like any other
with broken roads, broken boundaries
and people’s fears that needed fixing
With the rich who rushed past the
homeless under bridges
With people suffering from
neglect, anger, hunger and cancer
and such loneliness
A country like any other
Yet a trend-setter
A manufacturer of labels
even to denote things that didn’t matter
Projecting its trends across the Atlantic
the Pacific, causing waves of change
to change us, to
make it better
to no avail