RESTORATION

I often walk along our Rhymney River through the now meadowed pathways where the railway sidings of Brittania Colliery used to be. The pit has gone, along with all physical evidence of its imposing and vital presence to the community which is now a different place to that which I grew up in ... but those of us who lived within its shadow cannot help but remember and wonder at the things that have been won and lost with its demise ...  this is one of my recent attempts to reflect on the changes

Black blood flowed 

down wounded valleys 

mixed with the rush of 

the iron-red streams

pumped from the heart 

of the virgin strata 

as men scratched low 

with their flesh and bone

for the loan of a loaf

a roof and a home.

Black scars marred 

the mountain moorland

shaped the run 

of the sun in the cwm

time clutched hard

to the wheel that winding

marked the birth and 

the death of the day

while doorsteps waited 

for their men to pay. 

Black shadows 

now a fading memory 

of washed out riches 

and wasted hills

as sunshine springs 

down natured pathways

new journeys weave

round the ancient track

for a rainbow promise 

and a long look back.

(c) 2009 Graham Oakes

Surprising Blade

“… she, for whatever reason, finds something loveable in this most unlovable of men … and the soul, once it’s insisted upon - being loved - has only one inevitable response and that is to love back and gradually a soul gets stitched ponderously back together and something resembling a human being gets reconstructed …”  

Bob Geldorf  in a  Radio 4 interview.


Surprising Blade.

Unlovely and unloving,
full of guilt and cold remorse;
taking much but seldom giving,
letting sorrow run its course.


All the world on the attack,
low you hide, without defence.
Centuries stoop upon your back
raising walls of dry pretence.


Tough the skin and hard the core,
yet you fail to stem the tears.
Resistance only brings to fore
words that fan the flaming fears.


Helpless you; and hopeless too,
Life has failed to satisfy.
Slow to dream of morrows new,
quick the thoughts to fall and die ...


Cold the heart … but hot the steel
of that Surprising Blade
which cuts, so deep, to purge and heal;
Glory strikes: the shadows fade.  


Light, for darkness long endured,
Love, for raw and hurting soul;
Life, for Ransom, full, assured,
Hope restored, as one made whole.


Now, renewed as fertile ground,
the wilderness, in thrice blessed praise    
with grateful songs to heaven resounds,
and lives to love eternal days.


© July 2011 Graham Oakes