The farmer ploughed his fields

The farmer ploughed his fields

A stone’s throw

From the pithead

Wheat grew tall

Feathered with gold

Even as miners walked by

Black with coal dust

Carrying empty bait tins

Until they reached the hedgerow

Where they joined

A line of round-shouldered women

In plaid skirts

Picking blackberries

To be baked in a pie

For tea

Secondary school children

On half-term

Helped with the potato harvest

For a few bob a day

Enough to buy a new coat

For the winter

The rural and rustic

Cheek by jowl

With old world industry,

The pit-shaft wheel

Loomed large

In the kitchen window

Village life

Tiptoed into the future

With one steel-toed boot

In the past

Aberdeen Angus raised proud heads

Over the back garden fence

As nimble young things

Climbed onto their backs

For a joy ride

The shift change

Wandered into history

Spitting bloodied dust

Into the ground

Beaten flat

From the feet of the dead

The ghosts of an empire

Haunt the shopping centre

Newly built

The pithead a monument

To the fallen

Installed at ground level

As a centerpiece

Where coal-stained men

In baggy trousers and flat caps

Drink la-d-da cappuccinos

From oversized mugs

Cough grounds into napkins

And gaze out at the fields

Where the farmer’s son

Still ploughs

A stone’s throw

From the carpark

On reclaimed land

Where once stood

A slag heap as tall as a mountain

Before gentrification

Brought an end to village life

And welcomed a new

Clean town

Into the twenty-first century

With no jobs

For old men

Or time

For a rural colliery village

Industrial landscape.