‘Traces’

Black and white films of the 1940s,
mysteries and murders
and comedies with silly plots and elocution,
slim people dressed with formal grace,
wide open streets and country lanes
and nature spreading over all,
its fields and woodlands teeming wildlife,
returning to that very spot,
stand amidst the skyscrapers
and screaming highways,
to vainly search for traces
existing only on a reel of faded film.