Flat
as a good road should be
from nowhere to nowhere;
satisfying one condition above all:
to benefit no one man above another;
add no value
unless it be for all.
And so
they shared its futile labour equally,
and took their penny every day.
They hammered,
ceaselessly,
morning, noon, and night;
carried baskets of stones
to fill the gradient
and the quota
for a penny.
A Poor Law penny
for a Poor Law road.
Paved with pennies and tears.
The work became a frenzy,
a useless passion
like the road itself;
meaningless,
aimless.
Then, when the blight ran out
and with it
the money for relief-work schemes
they left their little piles
of broken stones,
their cenotaphs,
beneath the half-naked hill where I stand.
Remembering.
