North London Run

Running around Highate cemetery today the only sign of dissent I saw was a sticker on a lamppost: ‘Bollocks to Brexit’.

I ran by large mansions and buildings like royal tombs, and all was deathly silent, apart from the occasional observation by passers by – exclaiming and explaining the history of Swain’s lane in the way that only upwardly mobile men in their 50s do -

The sticker stood out like a violent blister on the arm of proud armoury beside the gentile graves lying peacefully side-by-side, high up on the hill, away from the mob,

And amongst the hush and white ornate stone I could not shut out the din of the rest of London, and I could not forget the heaviness, that feeling of pain in my side when I imagined the bodies that had to be stepped over to get to the piles of riches that these buildings housed, and underneath that gentility, all the complicity with class and imperial war –

And as I stood there observing, on top of that hill I thought that, cynically – the only inconvenience that Brexit will ever give to them that live beside the cemetery that holds the bodies of those who never went to war, is more expensive European trips, and less variety of local business, of immigrant families for them to patronise, and, ‘Oh, have you tried this delicious wine? It’s from that darling shop down the road. We never go to Tescos!’ and so on and so on it goes.

And it’s only til I run back down, that I feel I’m back in London town. And as drops of rain begin to fall, my beating heart begins to call to an army of justice on every street - the right for the people below the hill, just to live and just to be.