The Prayer of the Roads

 Big Tent Wordle prompt  http://bigtentpoetry.org/2010/11/come-one-come-all-november-26/comment-page-1/#comment-7374 for the other poems.   As this one’s a bit of a rant, I’m posting it on the Miserable Old Bat’s Blog.  If you want to read my calmer poetry, and sometimes prose, you’ll need to look at http://vivinfrance.wordpress.com

For some obscure reason, the Wordle will not reproduce here. 

The Prayer of the Roads

Oh, when will you awaken,
oh esteemed conseil municipal?
We need to be resurfaced –
or you may all be hung.
The time has passed for patience.
Nib in hand, the words flow.

Oh Mister digger man,
Oh, Mister forklift driver
Oh smoother-outer of bumps
Oh filler-in of nids de poules
Please come to our rescue
with ashpit and boiler,
clunking roller et al.
Oh guardian of supplies
come with lush tarmac
cupped in your hand.

We won’t mind the mess,
temporary lights,
Route Barrées
and Deviations.
We’ll applaud you,
laud you to the skies
if only you’ll grant us
the blessed godsend of your skills.

Twenty-one years ago, when we first bought a house in France for our retirement, we were incredibly impressed with the wonderful roads and the impeccable yearly maintenance.  This was at odds with the ridiculously small amounts demanded in local and national taxes.

Then came the crunch. Taxes went up but routine road maintenance seemed to come to a halt.   Our lovely village had suffered renewal of electricity, water supply and drainage, and each time they dug up the roads they simply threw a bit of gravel in the holes and called it repaired.  You’d think that a budget for road repair would have been foreseen from the start.  After a winter of continual frost and thaw, snow and thaw, and back to frost again, followed by a year of digging up and patching, our local road network and even the pavements (sidewalks) are in an appalling state.