Ian Howard | + Follow Poet |
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I Felt the Earth

I Felt the Earth

There in the valley reaching for the sun
Our younger days were such fun
Though the struggle to be
Was so much for me?

The valley walls were so tall
That I would fear they would fall
Then bury me, it was so little that I did see
As the sun did run its course

The silence still echoes in my mind
Where I had trod in younger times
The valleys hole deep under ground
Would give and take of those around

It to me didn’t seem so clear
As I was to young, and didn’t see
Why they would do this for such as me
Then laugh as their days sped by

Sinking shafts of killing coal
They would just each morning go
To where I would ask in questions few
As it was hard to speak to you

Who slaved all of your day’s
For such paltry sums
Quality of life and then some
They would take all these things away

You did this For Me

Even now in these modern days
They do the same a different ways
As we would still not know
That under ground you would toil so

Then later as time, did pass me to be
A thinking man for all to see
I would wonder at it all
That why you should have been there at all

From healthy folk to coughing wrecks
It took its toll of fine young men
This land that we loved so, and then again
We loved it for it was home

Fear not to turn up at the old people’s graves
There to talk of those long gone days
That left the greedy ones flying so high
Though to little me and mine, we cry to be

We had so little that had to go so far
Ask your mother around to tea
Talk over fences and laugh with me
At the way of folks that err

The life though hard was still there to see
Now came the new age just for you and me
Things were changed where I had grown
I could not leave you there alone

To strive to be good was all we could do
At what things you now saw and knew
In church yards this valley through
I will still visit there to talk to you

There to relate of the now times
To tell of tales that you once knew
I hope it sees your eternity through
Deep under ground there stirs not a thing

I see You Now

Nothing now the mines have gone
Just old memories now held in song
Blackened faces coughing, choking shrouds
Clouds of long past days held your ways

For other folk you toiled away
The sun that stretched the valley so
Is brighter now than you did know
The changing of the valleys ways

Brought on in so many places
Cannot replace your blackened faces
That even now had so many graces
Hear now, to the green grass you gave to me

Gone are spoons to say I love you so
Take me back I you implore
To walk once again the valley floor
Mind that hole my little dear

It’s where the miners use to play
The fear they had, has gone away
My child look to the hills you will see
Lumps and bumps graves of yesterday

Which on green grass spills
Over to cover mine droppings
That took its toll, they said it couldn’t be
Do not look you mustn’t see

The changes of one type of poverty
To this one place we hold so dear
Gone are the mines but what’s this I hear
There are new things to take their places

Today I Cry

No longer blackened, we’ve changed places
Little boxes with electronic faces
That sings your praise and makes you feel
Yet where’s the money to pay the bills

No matter that we are coming to
The centuries end for you and me
It’s the same now as it will always be
My grown up child don’t look at me

When I say, I would rather be
Back there in days gone by, believe me
Then if you catch me sometimes its fine
Where you may see me cry for that time

It’s not for the passing of my friends
That all these warm tears descend
Rolling then falling without end
It’s for the future that we are told

That will be better now that you are old
Not so grown child of mine
The poverty has just been refined
There on the soil that I left behind

Was as, and is always now
Where the earth feels the same

Copyright © Ian Howard | Year Posted 2013

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