Menu
--chosen-work--
Assisted Sight-seeing
I know where we are
we are at the four chimneys
she would often say
Factory flues that stood out stark
discerned on spoliated ground less dark
There were meadows here long-gone
when vessels working up the Don
were halted by the weirs and shoals
but soon canals and locks and mines
and access roads with halfpenny tolls
as Aldwarke farms gave way to
furnaces producing coke
mills producing high-grade steel
vast walls of works dull days of smoke
Can we see the birds
martins swifts and swallows there
rising in a cloud?
Her mantra in the summer days
The settling ponds hard by
release their poison to the sky
stinking effluent breeds flies
for birds in copious supplies
One time at Clifton Beacon and
at Ravenfield nearby
vantage point Pennines westward
reaching north to Vale of York
sometimes cloudcast others mirrors
shining light back off the clouds
rocket trails of every colour
cold and rainy midnight hour
golden glow and silver shower
From wapentake and all the flatlands
heading for the eastern coast
happy groups with toasts and cheering
singing out the old millennium
welcoming the New Year in
When fires lit the sky
I'm glad I lived to see it
the blind woman said