MAGPIE TALES
chose the illustration
THE SLAG HEAP
I remember Aberfan.
*
Not that I ever went there.
I only experienced Aberfan
In my mind,
Through descriptive radio words
And newspaper headlines.
It was 1966
And I was in Africa.
*
The headlines were stark.
'Slag heap collapses on school.
A hundred and sixteen children die'
*
The mental pictures
Were excrutiating,
The stuff of nightmares.
*
Did they hear the slag heap groaning
As it stirred itself in its long sleep?
Did they look up from their books
As a dark shadow
Loomed over them?
Did they see the slag heap
Slowly, relentlessly
Bending toward them?
They must have had time to scream.
*
The valleys of Wales have been greened.
Gone are the days of coal.
But the ghost of a slag-heap
Still looms
Over Aberfan.
*
Aberfan after the collapse.
*
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THE BLUR
No movement of wing, or feather.
Suspended inanimate in the hurtling blue.
Only the blur tells the tale.
*
