POETRY

FARMS

From the new motorway we spot them
tucked away in valleys,
hidden in hollows,
concealed for centuries —
away from any roads.
Detached, stand-offish,
screened from inquisitive eyes
beyond a copse of trees…
What drives this strange elusiveness?

Others can be spotted climbing hills,
clinging to the vertiginous edge.
Living life exposed,
subject to wind and weather,
why do hill farmers
choose such a challenging life?
Is it in their genes?
Were ancestors blessed
with a reckless head for heights?
Their appeal, as such,
is their distinctiveness.

And, what of the rest?
The Home Farms and Brookfields
with their open-days,
pristine yards and level ground.
They welcome you with old stone,
local flint, old timbers
and roses round the door.
Uniform, their fields of perfect crops,
immaculate Jersey cows…
Such model farms,
almost too good to be true.
                     

    VIEW FROM HERE

Where sheep once grazed, the town has grown :
cheap terraces crawl up the hill,
an overspill that planners planned —
another eyesore pays the bills.

This valley sees another tide
of buildings stretching from the town,
Industrial Parks and service roads
reach out towards the distant downs.

Greed is the spur to rip the land,
to tear out minerals from below;
to gouge the hills and mine the fields
and take the home of fox and crow.

Beyond this rise the land is safe :
farmed and cared for down the years;
viewed from afar, from distant hills,
mosaic of fields and woods is clear.

Protected for a thousand years
these hills and valleys are unchanged
no infill, quarry, house or road
this view will ever disarrange.

Yet recently a change has come
promoted by the farmers here:
"An innocent reuse of land —
a different crop should not be feared."

Soon acres of fluorescent growth
On each farm dominates the scene,
The country's raped by oil seed —
A yellow sea which once was green.

And now the view from here has changed
dramatically in so few years,
over valleys, plains, distant hills
fields of rape have soon appeared.

But that's not all, more sinister
is how rape spreads by hand unseen :
wind blown for miles from farmer's fields
the seeds, like snow fall in a dream,

seems now to be most everywhere,
out of control it will succeed
in covering every inch of land
till nothing shows but oil seed.

 OFF THE MAP

Less a road, more a country lane :
orchard, farm and yard dogs barking.
A figure slumped beneath low trees,
sunlight glints along both barrels.

A figure slumped beneath low trees,
orchard, farm and yard dogs barking,
possessions scattered all around :
letters and photos in the breeze.

His phone keeps ringing in the house,
on the stove a kettle boils,
letters and photos in the breeze,
possessions scattered all around.

A hole is where his smile had been –
From apple tree, a robin singing –
On the stove a kettle boils,
his phone keeps ringing in the house.

A hole is where his smile had been,
sunlight glints along both barrels;
from apple tree, a robin sings,
orchard, farm and yard dogs bark.

SALLOW

On Beltane Day ( this first of May)
the air outside is filled with snow :
not like the cold of wintertime —

when flakes fall steadily to ground —
but this snow drifts, rises and falls
then thickens with the passing breeze.

Through every window, open door,
the snow flows as it would in dreams :
filling each ledge and entrance hall

with gossamer that floats away,
evading house-proud, tidying hands.
Outside it catches leaves of plants,

covering  cobwebs and mown grass —
a snow scene under springtime sun.
So sallow willow sends its seeds

to ride the air like thistledown
until a longed for shower of rain
brings sweet relief and damps it down.

  SWIFTS

We saw their nest sites in Estoi —
dense colonies of mud-built cups
jammed under eaves of buildings there.
No practise flights for fledgling swifts,
they launch off on a three year flight
to eat, drink, sleep, mate on the wing.

On summer evenings, eating out,
swift multitudes would skim the square
for moths attracted by the lights;
then suddenly, they’d disappear
spiralling on their vesper flight
up and away from starlit town.

Swifts led the Moors from Africa
to settle on Sabika Hill
and build their fortressed palace home.
Alhambra still attract these birds —
hawking insects from ponds and rills —
a show for all the tourists there.

But England’s swifts are in decline :
lost nesting sites and food supplies
have halved the numbers coming here —
no screaming parties any more,
small groups or birds in ones or twos —
those drifts of swifts gone from our skies…

Vesper Flight – in the evening groups of swifts gather
then fly upwards many thousand feet. They will stay at
this altitude for several hours, asleep on the wing.

DEER

First light, where Forest Road climbs Cabbage Hill.
A muntjac on the verge lies very still,
its head now wreathed by bluebell flowers —
another victim of dark night time hours.

Empty road, fast car up from the village
meets bolting deer, startled from the hedge.
So many die on roads like this poor doe —
cue hungry fox and undertaker crow.

A slow left turn, past hedgerow white with May,
out of the dark, a deer now blocks my way.
DEAD STOP! — but there’s still a gentle touch,
I watch blithe deer run off … not worried much!

First deer encounter? — 60s Cotswold road,
pre-war banger that handled like a toad;
deer filled the windscreen — all that we could see —
then, over wall — one bound and he was free!

HARES

New born, the leveret hunkers down,
this shallow grassy form its only refuge.
From the field gate — one careless step away —
it faces lowering skies and April deluge.

Furred and mobile, leverets grow up fast —
once an evening visit from their mothers;
soon eating grasses, weaned in thirty days
for a secret life mostly under cover.

Out of hedgerow grass, as teams trot out,
a startled hare blunders across the pitch.
Frightened by the crowd, chased by unleashed dog,
zig-zags to safety, bounds the yawning ditch.

Elusive moon-gazers, meditators,
solitary envoys on the run;
they make shy pets — highly strung, evasive —
Cowper kept three hares, Boudica had one.

Seen from the train, in a distant pasture,
a lepus convocation set to scare :
these witches’ familiars and shape-shifters…
Was that a coven or some circled hares?