Then and now

Then, Costain built, in salubrious suburb of the thirties
With unshakable, firm foundations,
Grandma's house was constructed to last.
For little more than five hundred pounds
She bought a house in Greenford, Avoiding proverbial peasoupers,
Leaving urban grime an hour away,
Still near enough to shop at Swan and Edgars.
Delighted her nets would retain their whiteness

She swapped the blitz for sane suburbia.
Peaceful was her tree-lined avenue,
Family cars, a  future fantasy.
Constant birdsong interrupted rarely
By whirs and fizzes from the Piccadilly line.
A tranquillity almost rural; an ideal location.
Now, through grimy panes beneath Heathrow's flight path,
Grandma sees Jumbos release their landing gear.
She can almost shake hands with the pilot,
Sitting in her not so tranquil garden,
Birds only audible at dawn,
Sparrows no longer ubiquitous.
Her yellow canary dares to chirp
His unchanging melody from a prison
A world away from a life nature intended.
He sounds happy but is his song
A yearning for a life he’s never known?
Windows rattle to the din of congestion,
Walls reverberate; and pantechnicons
This road was never built for
Spew noxious fumes into the lounge.
An ambulance races to the IBM building
 At the crossroads, sirens blaring.
Whir and fizz of the tube train,
Compete with motorbikes and jet engines,
An orchestra of transport surrounds Grandma
But deafness in twilight years blinds her to reality.
Sometimes, startled, she'll turn up the TV in response,
When best china tea cups dance to the tune of the traffic.
Seventy years on, houses like Grandma's sell
For more than a quarter of a million pounds -
What price now for tranquillity?

*

If you enjoyed this poem click on the link below and check out some of my other writing on the helium site. 

  http://www.helium.com/items/784125-the-surburban-semi-then-and-now