Honey-suckle, dog-rose and bramble entwine
above meadow-sweet, hare-bell, marjoram
to evoke deep, ancient Summers which combine
With sensual moments of the great I am!
Just in May, Stitch-wort and wild strawberry
Wood-sorrel and anemone, shone beneath colours
Of campion and bluebell – now a memory
of man-made lanes and long human hours
Now I brush past fox-glove and cow-parsley
As Bronze Age drovers did on this same lane
And as people should as far as time can see
And I, in husbandry of crops I can sustain
Edwin Muir says, we are this side of the Fall
Not Eden, but agriculture – town and farm
but now grown cancerous and just too tall
Silhouette of pale hubris bent on self-harm
Let’s step back in concert. Uncover lost homes
In extensive woods and well-farmed fields
Where seasons pass in their metronome
and we follow, dependant on tribute and yield
Town and village will make and trade
By steps pragmatic as this verse’s feet
In sequence with heart beats as man-made
and natural forces resolve and meet
Where gravity brings water to ingenious hands
Where wind propels sails over dividing seas
Wresting economies for people in durable lands
From dead hands of ecocide, mal-fire, monopolies…
I sing of Cloud Cuckoo land, or so it’s said
While truth is abstract – status and spending
But I prefer real things – living and dead
Love, pulse and breath with no cruel ending
***
Patrick, I’ve just found my first comment on your blog. I thought I’d re-post it here:
“But now I can see only total failure. Moreover it seems to me, that I have no companions.”
Yes, it is lonely isn’t it? But why is today suddenly much lonelier than yesterday? Why is the failure much more obvious now than before? Has that much changed in your life that your candle is completely out? I think our candle only truly goes out when we accept the lie that we are being told daily (as Winston does at the end of 1984). Instead, simply by refusing to believe, we keep our candles alight.
The world moves slowly. Seeds of the future(s) are present all around us in the present. They will grow, reproduce and die as a function of their terrain, the season and the care that we give them. Just like any other farmer and gardener, we must remember that seeds have their own life-force. Our work is not to do the growing – seeds do that themselves. Our work is instead to protect, nurture and eventually harvest the seeds – both as our own reward and to sow new seeds for the future. If some of our ideas/plants die or wither in an unexpected cold blast or a drought, we may feel despair but we must sow again. So long as our candle burns, we must keep sowing and nurturing, we can do nothing else.
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Thanks Joshua,
You are right of course. I’m currently in the process of a seven hour blood transfusion, then another three days for my release from hospital. Anyway, I’m not thinking very clearly – not enough to respond. It’s nice to read a friendly voice though – there’s a whole world when I get home!
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