History As I See It

I watched the streams dry up,
Their cancer spread to the rivers,
Then the wealth of the mountains
Flowed out instead.

I heard the songs I’d been raised on,
Quieten to a whisper, then a gasp,
Then the silence filled
With the singing of machines.

I smelled the blood being let,
The meat stripped from the carcas,
Then the bones ground into bread
Adn that’s all there was to eat.

I felt the fields left strewn,
With bulbs of wild garlic and arrowhead,
Then the cultivated hedges
They’d been plucked for closing in.

Then the men
Who handed out the shovels,
Who set the price on sound,
Who stood guard by the ovens,
Who planted gardens on my land,
Asked me what was to be done.