Look further

A poem

This living monument to hope, a concrete belief in a better way. Conceived with the certainty of a golden age of social equality. Vilified upon completion, left to fail and fall. The Tower of Terror. But like most things that polarise, as time flows, emotions dampen and there is born a respect, even reverence for its vision of hope, possibility and change. 

I hold the railing and Ernö is here next to me. We are looking out over the wrapped shame of Grenfell, an angry tear in both of our eyes. I take his hand as a father or son might, but when our skin connects it is your touch that I recognise. The tears remain.

“ When the world changes, for whatever reason and in whatever way, we would be the first to know up here “, you say.

“ Yet we are so powerless to affect it “, I offer back: My usual bleakness.

You squeeze my hand and your touch is once more the architect’s. 

“What is misunderstood or painful will clarify and heal, you need to look ‘, he points out over the city and its horizon, ‘further ahead’.

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Inside and outside of Ernö Goldfinger’s Trellick Tower, North Kensington.

London 2021. Nikon d750

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