The Old Allotments – a poem

Following on from Sue Cook’s @popsytops blog about landscape which I reblogged last week, I too have been on a walk, recently passing the 120 year old St Mary’s Allotments in Leamington Spa. It’s hard to convey the gentle energy in spaces like this, but here goes..

Nourishment, earth fed, where

robins, blackbirds, crows reside,

grows plentiful and rich

beside the banks and riverside

Where working man has striven

long, his brow a sweat of toil

as hands, like spades with aching back

worked hard the heavy soil

To feed, to grow his many

crops, returning home triumphant

as empty mouths and stomachs waited

for succour and for comfort.

Grass, long and green and succulent,

home too for mouse and insect

caresses now the empty pots

as blackbirds, thrush, with perfect

eye, lunge quick and sharp and

faultlessly, each jab around the hedging

another search for sustenance

to feed the growing fledgling.

Autumn apples drop to feed the

dormant springtime flowers,

the earth and all its worms and creatures,

made damp with summer showers.

Make way for compost, de-generation

as winter rests the ground

and sure as night will follow day

the earth will echo with the sound

of working men – and women now

who find a moment’s peace

within the lanes and grassy tracks

where troubles fail,

then

            cease.