Yesterday - Bruce Levitan

These grey skies stretch like dirty washing

Enclosing the trampled ground,

Itself endlessly grey with rubble and detritus.

Here and there a scarecrow dog or cat

Picks its way across the broken streets,

And some weary brown weeds push through

The broken concrete.

A wind blows, laden with dust

Choking the few who wander out

In spite of their scarf-wrapped mouths.

The sea is not far from here,

But the shoreline is a greasy, congealed mess:

Plastic, and rotten bird and fish carcases – 

The smell is putrefaction;

Whilst what laps the shores

Is a green alga-infested sludge,

Patched with dark oily scales.

From its underground shelter

A child asks its mother:

“What are these?”

(Pointing to a photo of trees in a book).

“Yesterday,” she replies,

“When we had the chance to save them…

But didn’t.”

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Bruce Levitan (born 1955) England (born: Kenya)