There is nothing but the memory
There is nothing but the memory
Of golden days
Long gone
The sea rolls thunderously
Pounding hard against tall cliffs
All the way from Exmouth
On to Studland
The Jurassic Coast for all it’s worth
To heritage
When the cost of life is nought.
We tumbled through sand dunes
Made love beneath the stars
Drove the length of Albion
Until we came to Holy Island
Where the old fishing songs were sung
By herring men,
Lost to history
But for the upturned boatsheds
And Northumberland pipes
Played in the public bar
On a Saturday
What is the point of heritage
When the cost of life is nought.
The castle walls have crumbled
The palisades have gone
There are only old bones
Left in barrows
Wind shaped stones
Once so perfectly arranged
Nobody knows but why
They ever were
Unless as a record of achievement
A message from the past
Lost among the dark ages
Old books
Are collector's items
With their water ruined pages
Largely undeciphered
Barely understood
As much as Tudor life
Is normalised in Shakespeare
When he hid deeper truths
In language
To bemuse an audience with satire
Disguising conservatism
As idealism
A loyal monarchist was he
To be or not to be.
What is the point of heritage?
Or the revision of
Man-made history
When the cost of life
Is truthfully weighed against
Gazprom's market price
And in the end
As the sun sets over
The ruin of the old world
A well-run hedge fund
Is not a preservation society