Fables

Before the 20th century

It was baking and the crops

Banked fires against the cold

And wearing shoes as necklaces

To cross the fields to school.

My granny told me stories

Of babies in the cot

And the breaking of the sod

Clucking chickens in the yard

And why the moon landing

Was nothing but a fraud.

The ‘Flashing Blade’ on TV

And the way the puppets fought

Made the news appear quite odd

But the ‘Polis’ and the baddies

Were the standard stories told.

The years swapped the fabled

For the imagined and the real

But where my granny trod

The ghosties and the earwigs

Still fled in fear and dread.