Water fills the lake, that once was a pond, or a raindrop, that once quenched a thirst, that started the industrial revolution of coal and iron and steel, that was all taken away from the land.
When children mined. Their tiny hands and cold, hungry bodies merely collateral for the empire’s wealth. Never theirs.
Bathed in pain.
That water then, not a waterfall of happiness or river of content, but only discomfort, agony and loss.
Now that water only illustrates the luxury of time. And puts out the fires, when other children (the descendents of the child-miners) make fires to burn.
In the days of now, the lake is an amenity. People sail model boats, and swim in the waters of Bryn Bach Park, and sometimes can’t remember what the waters have been.
Fickle memory.
But perhaps the Canadian geese remember, and the dragon flies and the damsel flies of June. Perhaps the fish under the water remember, the things that the leisure people have forgotten.
One afternoon in October, as the blue autumn skies pierce emotions, like tiny arrows all around; a group of children take a boat out towards the island in the middle of the lake and they sing songs aloud, as children should. They laugh, jump off the boat, scream with delight, and enjoy the waters.
As children should.
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