Conversation

I saw a garden in the sky
Above an old canal: a high
Black bridge which saplings stood along
And where grew weeds abundantly;
Nature reserve of hawthorn trees
And birch, an aerial nursery.
You were there, weren't you?

The trains to Glazebrook ran that way.
How I admire the enterprise
Of our ancestral engineers
Who thrust this highway through the skies.
And on their viaduct, though they
Are dead, new hope, new life arise.
You WERE there, weren't you?

But no, he says, I only saw
A dirty relic, urban blight.
A girder bridge, a bygone age.
I thought of filthy smoke and noise,
Of cinders, fog and smarting eyes.
Thank Heaven I'm not there now!