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THE GREEN FORGOTTEN VALLEYS
Those green forgotten valleys,
No longer can be seen
Lying hidden behind the tall fir and larch
That have made these brown hills green
Relentlessly marching down the hills
Burying everything in their wake
The dead are long gone from this place
The pike no longer in the lake
The houses just hollow shells now
Where the past ghosts eerily through
The vacant windows and doors
With rotted frames and jambs that once were new.
Back then there was no silence, only the sound
Of human laughter, and bird-calls to each other
The dogs growling at a wayward sheep.
And children’s scrapes kissed better by their mother
Nature is having the last laugh now
Soon there will be no trace of us at all
As the trees come marching down the hillside
No one hears the lonesome curlew’s call.
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My Writing Life 
Reminded me of the Isle of Nevis overgrown sugar plantation being rediscovered by the Time Team.
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Thanks Paudie. I wrote it some years ago; it’s about a deserted valley I came across near my wife’s family home outside Cappamore Co Limerick. It was eerie and overgrown, five or six houses still standing, the surrounding hills planted with fir or larch which seemed to be marching down the hillside. It was silent too; I couldn’t hear any birds or see any sign of life. Weird, I thought.
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That’s glorious. There’s a musicality in the lines that really works wonders for this scene of deep nostalgia.
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Thank you John. It’s a place I have only seen the one time. I have never went back, but I have never forgotten it.
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