The Phone Box

In the lazy parlance of today
they would be called iconic,
these red, and now redundant,
boxes once peppering
our towns and landscapes 

Within a hundred years
they came and went,
to house the phones
that had no home,
or bring a calling
home again.

Designed by Giles Gilbert Scott,
back in the 1920s, 
they spread the word
throughout the land, not
in mere hundreds 
but many tens of thousands.
They even travelled 
overseas, foretelling
another kind of messaging
as the millennium drew near.

Red, and somewhat self-important,
they grew collectable
in their ageing obsolescence,
gracing, or disgracing
(some would say)
many a moneyed mansion,
and even much more modest homes.

Now, as we become more mobile,
we’d be foolish to forget
the part they played
in so many million lives,
coined to carry news:
of love, and life, and death;
of laughter or despair.
A living part - not gone away,
just gone elsewhere.

Like modern standing stones,
these bright red boxes stay,
treasured reminders
of another age, another way.