Affordable Housing?

Forget the green-winged orchid,
ragged-robin...the cuckooflower
and yellow iris, adders-tongue fern –
sweet vernal grasses;

forget you ever heard the meadow-lark
and the corncrake, or laid eyes upon
the marsh fritillary – or witnessed
a shiver of reeds hung with a peignoir
of mist;

a lake shimmering before the wind
like shot-satin, as a field of quivering corn
before the thresher.

That same wind, presently, barely
penetrates the vulgar walls of leylandii
beneath which manicured lawns border

rows of solar-panelled, terracotta roofs
and miles of decking; the dulcet tones
of MP3s and the drum-beat drone
of IPod delicacies, waft on the evening air

and feed the greed for granite work-tops
plasma TV screens, marble baths,
and leather three-piece suites.

Today belongs only to the few,
tomorrow, to none, and a book I bought,
of Victorian botanical sketches...
to all our yesterdays.