Elm Park

I'm catching up on my OU course, so the Napowrimo prompts will have to wait another day!

Elm Park

Each street was lined with elms

Pushing up through the wooden squares

Set into tarmacked pavements

Until their trunks grew tall and fat,

Their roots lifting, tilting the tarmac,

Tipping roller skaters off course,

Tripping unwary pensioners

On their unsteady way to the shops.

Every few years the council would arrive,

Set up their ladders, ropes, traffic cones,

Pollard the elms into tidy balls,

To keep them inside their allocated space.

But as Dagenham spewed out more cars,

And soft green front gardens surrendered

To dusty, grey-concreted parking spaces,

Dipped kerbs turned elms into obstructions,

Perches for sparrows, bent on spoiling glossy paintwork.

The beetles' arrival was then greeted as a bonus;

As elms died back, street by street,

Few mourners grieved their loss.

Everyday Poetry