ARRIVAL OF CONCRETE

The old woman pottered

in a coal-dark house

with an inscrutable history 

from before our time;

she'd shout at kids

who messed in the meadow.

 

Buttercups and poppies

scattered colour

across that wild expanse

where dock leaves

apparently cured nettle stings

and the travellers said

the field contained

cures for most ailments.

 

Trespassing, we played games

in the cornfield opposite

all mad with summer

but in time, the woman died

and her crumbling house

became a car park

while in the cornfield

five hundred new houses.

 

The Fig Tree 9. June 2025, Editor Tim Fellows