He gazes still

He gazes still

From atop the hill

Looking out over the valley

As the river broadens

Into a final reckoning with the sea

Pitching its waste and detritus

Into the deep

Lost as he is, he still knows

It will be there tomorrow.

It is the people who come and go

The living and dying

A tidal change

He has seen it all

From this very spot

The smoke from the steelmakers

The dust from the coal mines

The cries of the fish wives

Standing on the quayside

Waiting on their men

After a heavy storm.

The tallyman

Bailiffs

The pauper's funeral.

Change is slow

But the passing of it

Into history is swift

There is never any chance

To hold on

Too many people have tried

Lived and died

Been torn to pieces

In a far of land

Defending the realm

Building an Empire

Believing the truth

Of a million lies.

Living with the legacy

Of greed

As the old ways are discarded.

Much as he.

Lost in a haze

Of yesterday’s

Too grey to be recalled

With any sense of wonder

The drudge of hard labour

The waste of a life

Digging coal

Shovelling it into a furnace

The salt of the earth

Means just that

They salt the earth

With their sweat and blood

For the good

Of a few

Who couldn’t care less.

Perhaps he should never have lived

He had heard that said

Too many men and women

Down on their luck

Filling their boots with woe.

So many people

Just like him, wishing they had never been born

“But then,” he thought

As he looked out

Across the sea

Dreaming of somewhere exotic

Beyond the limits of the horizon

The scope of his experience

Where there still might be a sliver

Of unsquashed hope

“I would have nothing to moan about.”