The antique bureau
Quietly aging in a dark alcove in the study,
The antique bureau patiently stood waiting,
Collecting dust, dirt and woodworm holes,
Its time marked writing slope anticipating.
Darkened mahogany panels warping slightly,
Held together by handmade rusting nails,
Multiple layers of warn and scratched varnish,
Covering many lifetimes of amazing tales.
Crafted to the highest standards of the times,
Dovetail joints and hard wood throughout,
Signed by the maker on a rubbed brass plaque,
This piece’s provenance never in doubt.
In its life world wars have decimated cities,
Peacetime has made all civilization grow,
Development of technology has exploded,
But everything depended on this bureau.
The letters penned upon its aged writing slope,
Stained with the ink of world leaders,
Shaped the future this antique resides in now,
Sharing information to all their readers.
It lived in niches of the most important offices,
Royalty and parliamentarians alike,
Serving it’s many owners day in and day out,
Never on holiday or going on a strike.
The words and sentences indented into it,
Filled with absolute power and authority,
Are now signs of its forgotten working life,
Time lines scratched with hasty ferocity.
The writing sent is positioned in history,
But tools that made them are forgotten,
Covered with the ravages of ceaseless age,
Overlooked in a dark room going rotten.
History is made by heroes and heroines,
Yet the mundane objects belonging too,
This lost and unloved old antique bureau,
Sewed the seed from which today grew.
Part Dalek 