From the west front of this Restoration house –
built a century before the demand
for coal brought, in hearing of the brocaded
drawing room, the daily clank and hiss
of the pit head winding gear and the pumps
keeping the seams dry, and, in direct
line of sight of the spacious steps, the slagheap’s
incremental growth on land previously
considered worthless so not purchased –
was a view, across the shallow valley
and extensive pasture land, of benign hills.
The slagheap was treed post-Aberfan,
the pit closed under Thatcher, and the headgear
retained, like the stately home, a monument
to that other country. Under cropped fields
where lambs suckle this February day,
abandoned, expensive machinery
rusts in fallen, inundated seams.
By David Selzer