Lane Unadopted (Poetry)

Left out in the rain
to fend for itself
it gathered wildness
strung brown-eyed puddles
led nowhere special

Given a name the
weather half-erased
rotted through the sign
proclaiming MILL LANE —
UNADOPTED like

no one judged it worth
the bother of care
no one lived down there
people walked their dogs
gangs of children played

A pot-holed track that
stopped without warning
a thin cul-de-sac
winter seldom used
and let grow over

***

Developers came
drowned it in tarmac
nothing like nurture
to wreck what Nature
had made for itself