1000
Elegy - Isle of Oxney
Where are the songs the reapers sang
Arcing their scythes across the field
To bring home the summer yield
The earth returned to labouring man?
Where are the bailers and the poor
Who glean the edges for the ears
Left for them to ease their fears
When winter famine knocks the door?
Where are the ricks and ancient hedges
Filled with the call of fledging birds
The nests of dormice and soft words
Of lovers tumbling in the sedges?
Oh, I know that life was hard
And there's no reason we should yearn
For sweated labour to return
With broken backs and prospects marred;
But here, up on Cliff Edge, I sense,
As wheat engulfs the valley floor,
That we have lost something more
Than simple toil amidst the tense
But futile race for more progress
And more cost-effective ways
To pile up wealth and fill our days
With entertainmnet, while they mess
With the months as they go by,
The seasons and the yearly round
The feast days that are more profound
Than advertising stunts imply.
The solstice and the equinox
The quarter days and harvest homes
Are wilier than the sterile gnomes
Who'd have us pinned down to the Box,
Ignoring how the world each day
Is different and calling me
To work with them to set us free
From sterile uniformity.
So if I cannot hear the song
Of reapers, or see the sunlight glint
On scythes returning home, or hint
At silent gleaners here among
The missing hedgerows, pardon me
For wishing that those things at least
Which sanctified a rural peace
Might find once more a way to be
A blessing, even to those who stand
As I, in silent hope, and long
For fields alive once more with song
To resurrect this silent land.
Brian Hick September 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 25.9.23
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