Maatstaf. Jaargang 29

[p. 82]

Elizabeth Harding Darnall, Redevelopment Area

Black blight, a planning fungus, absorbing bricks
Spreads with virulence,
Leaving in its wake
Nodules of desperation, a spent pride.

Boarded up windows, hiding livid hollows,
Gaping carcasses, displayed like traitors
Having lived as victims
Of a sober despotism,

Are now dragged down and away through dust.
The pocked entries and blood powder
Behind the damp flora, shredded paper
Give no comfort to the cold, furtive lovers
From the reprieved houses in the bewildered rows.

Solitary dwellings, stone built squires, knowing better days
Stand exposed, deserted by their close tenants
Dazed, accepting deference to their fine walls,
Naked, alone in the dust of change
Which settles and sleeps for a time,
A long time, say the cynics.

But the brick scars fade and lighten,
The old tyres sink into the wilderness.
The tipped rubbish drawn osmotically
Is no more than a soluble rag.
Razed kinship, wasted, so much Phoenician rubble.

The earth sucks clean,
Only trees now stand, not all the yards were concrete.
A savage survival transmits its awareness.

[p. 83]

 

A dispossession of the ruling desolation

 

In a fine network of control

 

 

 

Ragwort, rosebay willow and michaelmas daisies,

 

Flanked by the blackened steelworks

 

Are drawn up by the moon's arid antiquity

 

And flung over the ragged fecundity

 

Of the urban wasteland.

 

While far, far across,

 

Cutting over the yellow-rivered valley,

 

The moors reach out, blue as steel.