Going, Going

I thought it would last my time — / The sense that, beyond the town, / There would always be fields and farms, / Where the village louts could climb / Such trees as were not cut down; / I knew there’d be false alarms // In the papers about old streets / And split-level shopping, but some / Have always been left so far; / And when the old part retreats / As the bleak high-risers come / We can always escape in the car. // Things are tougher than we are, just / As earth will always respond / However we mess it about; / Chuck filth in the sea, if you must: / The tides will be clean beyond. / —But what do I feel now? Doubt? // Or age, simply? The crowd / Is young in the Ml cafe; / Their kids are screaming for more — / More houses, more parking allowed, / More caravan sites, more pay. / On the Business Page, a score // Of spectacled grins approve / Some takeover bid that entails / Five per cent profit (and ten / Per cent more in the estuaries): move / Your works to the unspoilt dales / (Grey area grants)! And when // You try to get near the sea / In summer ... / It seems, just now, / To be happening so very fast; / Despite all the land left free / For the first time I feel somehow / That it isn’t going to last, // That before I snuff it, the whole / Boiling will be bricked in / Except for the tourist parts — / First slum of Europe: a role / It won’t be so hard to win, / With a cast of crooks and tarts. // And that will be England gone, / The shadows, the meadows, the lanes, / The guildhalls, the carved choirs. / There’ll be books; it will linger on / In galleries; but all that remains / For us will be concrete and tyres. // Most things are never meant. / This won’t be, most likely: but greeds / And garbage are too thick-strewn / To be swept up now, or invent / Excuses that make them all needs. / I just think it will happen, soon.