Before my birth true fields held winds for hay, <br />Once born I ran within them; life was free, <br />But dear, in teenage years, upon the day <br />Dark diggers worked to calm the grassy sea. <br />The roads and workers came, my fields were lost; <br />Black buildings scraped the once clear-rising skies. <br />Accepting, yet aware of what it cost, <br />I worked to drink and drowned the truth in lies. <br />Our bright place boomed its youth, but ageing on <br />Its folk grew wise; sober pubs closed down. <br />The empty buildings loomed ‘til fell upon: <br />Wind and time made rubble of the town. <br />As moss made smooth its grassy, windswept floor, <br />My children ran within it, nil before.<br /><br />Sean Godley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/before-my-birth/
