Across the Porter

ACROSS THE PORTER

"rolled on tawny sands, through regions passion-wild,
the groves of love, in jealous beauty dark,
complains the Porter, Nature's thwarted child,
born in the waste"

--- Ebenezer Elliot (1781-1849)

Leaving the house
I stood for near five minutes
waiting for a gap in the traffic down Ecclesall Road
breathing in the fumes of lorries and buses
with their leaded pollution
The sulphurous smoke of steelworks stole the soul of my lungs
the smoke that the City Fathers never claimed
for Europe's cleanest but blamed
on Rotherham and the wind's direction
Having finally crossed
I strolled smartly up Cemetery Avenue
into Frog Walk
where a frog wouldn't be seen dead
at least if it were it would be
Here the footpath crosses the Porter
Sheffield's fifth river now little more than a culverted sewer
a foam-covered, dirty, grey-brown, liquid flow
born in the waste of Upper Burbage Moor
where ramblers tramp an unceasing weekend
Choked by the effluent from the snuff mill
it is a recipient for the discarded pram-bottoms of Sharrow
Here it disappears underground to never see light of day
until after it has merged into the Sheaf and the Don
dying in the waste of sub-city concrete
I left the river quickly
climbed to Sharrow Head and home.

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Sheffield, 14th January 1972

Publication

1974 Strath (UK)