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