Unreal Estate (Poetry)

[ This was Runner-up in the Country Living Magazine Poetry Competition. ]

Once, all this was fields —
beneath the concrete and the brick
seeds wait — secret — bide their time
small memories in husks —
a dream of wind-blown stalks
swept under patios and decking —
those scattered plantings of suburbia
that rise like Rome —
almost in a day.

A conquered meadow sleeps
shrouded deep in tarmac but for weeds —
small insurrections at the gutter’s edge
brave as flags — their flowers flutter bold
intentions — thistle armies gather on the verge
each summer thickens up their ranks.

Rain peels back the gaudy skin of paint —
rots through woven fencing —
wind contrives to bring false boundaries down...

This was a farm —

the land once rich with growing all it could
and there were those who loved it —
worked its soil with humour and good sense
understood the weather at its heart.

What barns remain — converted — sanitized and free
of stench — the bovine breath and wafting dung —
no feathers haunt old beams restored
and double-glazing lets in too much light
to buildings meant for gloom —
high caverns cosied — drafty chinks sealed up.

Walls and walls and walls —
rough and red and foreign — block on block
as many as would fit the acreage —
the ancient hedgerows bulldozed and the copse —
the wrecks of roots dug in.

All now is sham — a quick-fix
shelter for triumphant city tribes who’ve come
to settle in a promised land.

Some sense the ghosts of harvest
lingering among the turning leaves —
old instincts surface — resurrected by the sharpness
of a sudden frost.