Monday 29 June 2015

In the European District

Square de Meeûs* in the sun
By office workers overrun
Statesmen, carved in stone, stare blind
Who can call their names to mind?

Sprawled on the grass in ones and twos,
Lunch time chatter, sandwich queues
Colourful workforce on display
While buses pass by either way...

Commission buildings, glass and steel;
And a 1930s high rise feel,
Private mansions – bureaux all
Luxembourg station – entrance hall

To mammoth complexes which spread
Along the Maelbeek river bed
Once site of paper mills and beer
Local farms and fields lay here.

But the Parliament has changed all that
Now hive of work for Eurocrat
The elegance of yesteryear
Is a fading memory, I fear!

(c) Poet in the woods 2015



* Count Ferdinand de Meeûs (1798-1861) - Belgian Banker and Jurist.

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