LAMENT FOR BERSHAM IRON WORKS
Not for the hard, life-denying graft of it
or the danger, not for the polluting smoke
or the banishing of bird song,
not for the exploitation and social
upheaval, least of all for its cannons
at Naseby, Bunker Hill, Waterloo,
but for its madness, the sheer reach of it,
the invention of it, the ambition,
the defiance, the rhythmical creak
of the horse-drawn gin pumping water
from the river, the sulphurous roars
of the furnace, the forge hammers pounding
through the ancient woods, along Offa’s Dyke,
their echoes dying…
John Chapman
July 25, 2011Maybe a bit tenuous but, I wonder if, in years to come, a poet will lament upon the passing of high band radio/TV signals? ‘The banishing of birdsong’ rings true in our area since the advent about ten years ago of high band signals from Sandy TV mast, the array of communications on our water tower to do with the nearby Chicksands Spy Centre and several telephony masts which presaged the sudden and dramatic reduction in insect life leading to the loss of many species of our songbirds. We know nor understand what we do half the time until a voice of concern is eventually listened to.
Have the birds returned to Bersham? I hope so.
David Selzer
July 25, 2011They have, John.
John Huddart
August 11, 2011But when the birds come back, which they always seem to do, does the human invention, ambition and defiance? Birds can always move on, but human things just vanish.
John Chapman
August 24, 2011Does human invention, ambition and defiance return? Only if there is money to be made, John, I fear.