WHEN a poetry workshop
prompted me to write about my High Street, I just had to do something about the
impetus to ‘Shop Local’.
That is a strong movement
around here, where people are leaving the superstores in good numbers. Many now
prefer to buy their groceries at local produce markets, farm shops and market
gardens – and there is plenty of great food on offer here in west Wales, most
of it grown and produced locally.
This is the poem:
Fall from Grace
They don’t go there any more,
to those aisles where they
fought daily,
elbowed each other aside in
the cause
of finding perfect, uniform
sprouts
for the Christmas dinner.
In this great hall where they
barged
to grab a bogof or a
three-for-two,
assaulted by the sickly aroma
of spice buns,
the scent of coffee is sour.
This cathedral of retail
power
echoes to the squeak of
a single crooked trolley
wheel.
They have all abandoned
the banks of bleeping tills,
turned from the altar of
50 per cent extra, to be
free.
They no longer value the
offer of
double points on a loyalty
card.
They have sacrificed the
‘cut price’ flashes to put
fair trade on the table.
They smile at knobbly
carrots,
they like their parsnips
dirt-dusted,
their leeks sandy, potatoes
muddy,
they savour the taste of the
earth
of this home-grown land.
Oh yes, they shop local here
for the flavour of real life.
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