Pale lines of south-stacked wooden trunks

Soften ancient village stone

Where once the powder of destruction

Overnighted, dry, in locked Saltpetre Shed

And as the sunrise called to sleepy boatmen

Roused to disgorge coal and fill the holds of narrow boats

Long with loads of that which, alone save gods, could rend the stone apart

Now gone, where peaceful grass, and pond, alone, fills the once watery Wharf

That, then, contained the many voices laughing

The sunken ghosts of eighteen thirty’s wakening eyes.

(c)Copyright Stephen Tanham, 2016.