The Brent, b.c. (before concrete).
I sometimes like to imagine a time,
when plains would have flooded,
sodden land where the M1 began
by minute islands, now long gone;
an inlet meandering for a quartmile.
Before the stone bed came about:
a coarse corridor for man to expand
cruel calamity and callous chaos;
trolleys wedged in shallow slumps
slabs where once was soil and plant.
A time before flyovers and bridges,
the trash-trap and lumped land;
before the water was misted white
with runoff, poison, nor bubbled,
like moon-kissed cauldron broth.
Back when roach and trout, plenty
in tributaries two, made vast shoals,
uncountable, seeding river bends;
before the retail park, widened roads,
the traffic, the trash and the tyres.
And when the rainfall comes heavy
with its colour, rush, flow and fury,
there’s a glimpse of a time, wild, early.