Playground Poem by Angela Wybrow

You can imagine our delight
When we found the old bomb-site:
A huge crater in the ground
On the outskirts of our town.

There were broken old bottles and battered old tellies,
Rusty old bikes and leaky old wellies;
There were wooden crates and broken brollies,
Rusty tin cans and supermarket trollies.

There was junk lying about everywhere,
But we would-be adventurers did not care.
Down at the dump we could waste a whole day -
Our cares and worries seemed a lifetime away.

Corrugated sheeting and discarded wooden planks
Were used to build dens by the muddy wooded banks.
We'd get mud on our faces and on our knees.
In summer we'd bake and in winter we'd freeze.

The walls of our den were sometimes creaky,
And the roof of our den was sometimes leaky;
But we didn't mind that our secret camp
Was more than occasionally somewhat damp.

We could be workmen building a brand new town,
Or be great inventors with a new discovery found.
We could be Artic explorers braving the ice cold,
Or a gang of intrepid treasure-seekers digging for gold.

We could be swashbuckling pirates upon the high seas,
Or daring young pilots soaring high above the tall trees.
We could be celebrated detectives hunting for clues,
Or impersonate Elvis Presley singing the Blues.

We could be spacemen in a rocket bound for the moon,
Or be Wild West cowboys galloping at high noon.
Our childhood days were just so much fun,
But now those days are gone - over and done.