Dear all, being too frail to walk, it’s hard to compose. To compose, we need the rhythm of walking and freedom to declaim (loudly). Ah well, let this be first draught.
As I rode out to plough, one morning
Voices of Centuries chimed with my call
Summoned soil and ox and iron bringing
Culture to nature this side of the Fall
Property comes with disarray
“Wealth accumulates men decay”
As I walked out in the fields one morning
Grass webs caught dew and harvested light
And every sound was of small birds singing
And from every step rose holy delight
Landlords came ripping people from land
Money from wool sacks killed husbandry’s hand
Now property and usury stalk the field
Without touch, or scent, or sight, or sound
Lord is the market. Money the yield.
Ghosts of destruction shroud holy ground
Gaseous blankets from fires, each hour
Smother where people and nature can flower
Now millions of sequestered years will burn
And billions of living fields are dead
Enclosure is blind and deaf to the urn
Of the loved and lost and mistreated
Living Earth – living people – one and indivisible
Holy soil, holy crops, holy sensible, wholly visible
(then joyous fiddle and any other instrument for joy)