Time For The Fox

Photo: WHB 2015

atop the coop
waiting
always waiting
watching
constant watching
a lifetime of watching
and waiting
sleeping too
but always wary
wary
and cunning

on that
my life
their lives
their deaths
depend
catch them off guard
find or force an entry
feather whirlwind
blood so red
sound abounds
then escape
back to my den
prize in my jaws

cubs satisfied
another day survived
one more day alive
to thrive
before I start again
one more fox
one fewer chicken
scales swinging
a sort of balance
 is kept

for now

 

 

River Of Iron

Skinningrove Beck

 

The water flows red

As it streams down from the hills

And I can’t help but feel

As it meets the cold North Sea

That it bears the blood of men

Who laboured in those mines

To bring the iron for me

 

Iron Valley

Photo by Tom Swinnen on Pexels.com

The streams descending from the hills
Ran red with the iron they brought. 
It could as well have been lost blood
For all the wealth they sought.

Plenteous in ore and rich in scope
Those Northern hills were ravaged;
In the name of thrusting Revolution
My native land was savaged. 

The earth’s spoils harvested to feed
the world’s gross need for steel;
So while the master’s pockets bulged
No stop to progress’s wheel. 

The cost was counted in toil and sweat,
In the maiming of the land,
And the crying of unnumbered souls
Who did not understand. 

---

NOTE:  There were 400 fatalities at Eston, North Yorkshire, in the 100 years (in the 19th and early 20th Centuries) the mines were worked there in the Eston Hills, between Cleveland and the River Tees Estuary.