Primary Children at the Heritage Centre

Their footsteps recede and Queen Elizabeth the first

relaxes again in her fussy portrait ruffs.

Miners in sepia prints blown up to twenty feet

on the walls puff merrily again on clay pipes

and wink at each other, knowingly relieved.

Excitement for the past dies for most of them

at the door, but the kindled spark smoulders

perhaps in one or two of them.

It is too bright inside the heritage temple

to harbour more ghosts than mentioned,

though possibly they still thrive on old shelves

elsewhere, organically fed by centuried dust.

But here there is a hermetically purified atmosphere

that keeps parchments whole and ghosts at bay.

The school trip voices waterfall away

towards the waiting coach,

beside banners bearing portraits of those

who might have been their ancestors,

regarding them with awe,

and those flag people too are wide eyed

in the wonder that they ended here.