Digger Drivers

Digger Drivers

They remade the road not far from my flat

I watched from the windows while sipping my tea

They relaid the piping for water and gas

And rewired us for electricity

I wandered at how the old lane was revamped

First into a mud pie then slowly appeared

The freshly laid tarmac and newly lit lamps

And after the white lines the mess was all cleared

But what left me mystified, joyed and amazed

Was not the end product, be that understood

But the skill of the drivers of heavy machines

Who made acrobatic the movement of mud

The diggers like swans, swooping beaks to the waves

Swirling and wheeling, graceful, precise,

Coordinate gestures in poetic staves

Like Torville and Dean, the earth serving for ice

The road is now quiet, the workmen have gone

The speed bumps are laid where holes once had been

But I saw the dance of the lake and the swan

With an earth excavator the star of the scene

Liz Figures France January 2006