New Roads Poem by Matt Mooney

On the western brim of Leith hill
Looking all round the North of Kerry
There was a long blind bend
In the shape of a semicircle.

Now that has been cut off
To be replaced forever
By a new road climbing over-
Cut into the hill like the bed of a river.

I’ll miss that scenic semicircle:
Perfumed primroses in the sun
Displayed along the grassy ditch,
Dressed in yellow, every one.

Only a brief look at the seaside
From the wheel as you drove by:
To the west a long low valley
That stretched to Ballyheigue;
For it was a risky business
To be flirting with the view,
Not knowing what’s behind you-
Maybe a big black four by four!
The boot is down, the window up,
This time you’d see no more.

I have waited for the moment
The new road straight and wide
Would surmount this hill in Kerry
And we’d have take off to the sky;
To be on the latest low horizon
Above Tralee the town deep down
And sleeping sleek Sliabh Mish
Of fleeting shadows one by one:
Of a tragic but romantic tale
Of a lovely rose born in the vale
And of her exiled lover and his lament
When the fair one died for love of him.

In its ballrooms of blushing roses
I sowed the wild oats of my life;
My Ford Cortina that I loved
Could almost drive home by itself-
Each hill and dale we knew so well.

The contours of Stack’s Mountains
Have been embedded in my brain:
I see them when I'm driving
Through the wide and fertile plains
But I think that it’s a holy shame
That they are acupunctured
By those wind turbines: such a sight!
White phantoms of the future?
Not at a price this high let there be light.

This is it at last - a sight to be seen!
This stretch of rising road, this dream:
From the blueprint to the masterpiece
Of many giant machines and men;
After all the excavation of the earth
It was filled with stone and chips,
Then the rolling and the tarring hot
And the building of its rising hips-
Each sloping down, green grassed,
Replacing what was taken at the start.
But I won’t forget the bend beyond,
I will slip off this road some day
To see if there are still primroses,
To view the bright and distant bay-
Now I’ll make a wish and welcome
A smooth black shining motorway.