I wasn’t quite four

When the BBC showed

Gritty, grey images, of stark faced men,

Digging through the floodlit night

Of apron clad women being led from school gates.

I didn’t understand why the tears

Were pouring down the reporter’s my mam’s and my gran’s faces,

Or how the black mountain flooded the school

Wiping out a village generation

I don’t remember telling my mam

They need Thunderbirds there

Or her response

I understand fifty years on

How five fateful minutes

Made Ysgol Pantglas Aberfan

The three saddest words to a Welshman