Underneath Your Feet

The open I wrote after my first visit to Thamesmead – A walk on top of SOS Southern Outfall Sewer:

I went to the Southern Outfal Sewer today.
It is hard to explain the emotion it aroused in me.
Like water in a paper cup,
now it seeps through,
makes me one with what’s around.
All the way from Plumstead to Crossness Sewage Farm.
I walked on top of the sewer… Thought…. And the lack of it.
I have been there every day.
Underneath my feet, there floated my shit.
Here, right next to me is my entropy.
I am a part of that great organic mass that constantly transforms,
shifts shapes, becomes sentient or other.
Death is not a definite thing.
Death is life in motion.
The spirit is shared. …
All humans are a creature.
The creature is one with all that surrounds it.
Under the skin of this landscape run veins of basic ingenious humanity.
Those blades of grass are nourished by my excrement.

There is a response to this story here: Lois Musson

 

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