Poem devised collaboratively with Helen Weinstein who briefed Michael Rosen about the area and the local history & you can find the resources for parents and teachers about Coldham's Common, Coprolite mining and more on our website http://www.creatingmycambridge.com/songs-creative/resources/local-history-topics
MICHAEL ROSEN'S COLDHAM'S COMMON POEM
The years pass
and the grass grows,
the grass grows over
the years disappear...
Underground
clues are found.
Listen! And we can hear
across a hundred million years...
The sound of the sea
where now there’s a tree;
giant lizards in the sky
wide wings take them high
swooping on fish in the waves
gliding over rocks and caves
flapping and stopping
leaving their droppings
for millions of years
right here, just here.
The years pass
and the grass grows,
the grass grows over
the years disappear.
What were droppings and bone
turn to stone
deep down, day and night
silent, slow, out of sight
vast beyond measure
a secret treasure
deep in the ground
waiting to be found.
Up above people come and go
their pigs and cows moving slow
free to graze upon the ground
until a Lord puts fences round:
nowhere for the pigs and cows,
and with the people starving now
one Jack o’ the Style leads a revolt
with a hundred others they call a halt
break the fences and burst back through
with pigs and cows, their hens and ewes.
The years pass
and the grass grows,
the grass grows over
the years disappear.
One John Ball from Barnwell way
beneath the grass, said there lay
some sort o’ magical stuff
the which - if ye had enough,
mixed it right, made it just so,
it’d make any plant grow
and in a matter of just a few years
thousands came and dug right here.
Very few knew that all the while
they were free to do so, ‘cos of Jack o’ the Style
very few knew that the reason why
was down to lizards in the sky
for millions of years, leaving behind
what many years later, others would find.
The years pass
and the grass grows,
the grass grows over
the years disappear
and here we are:
we stand right here.
