Where have all the flowers gone?

This is the title of an article I saw published by Cardiff University in 2016. It has the end words –
“Remembering Aberfan.” In this piece I hope to do the same.

Not a single flower; not a single weed, grew on the spot where the tip came down on that appalling day, 21st October 1966. Perhaps in respect for those killed by tip number seven. The slagheap of Aberfan.

Not a single flower grew in the pavements. Nor in the cracks. Nor in the kerbs. Not a single space was left untouched by the
disaster that took the lives of the innocent. Lives shattered. Hope forever gone.

The graves. Breathtakingly beautiful.
The memorial garden too.
Should never have been there.
Should never have been needed.
But they were and whose fault was that?