The Green Desert from an Emerald Ocean
A verdant patchwork of beauty,
A lush green desert.
Tree by tree,
Bush by bush,
Stream by stream,
Pond by pond.
When Harold marched all the way to Stamford Bridge
To settle a score with Hardrada,
Then back down to Hastings
To get one in the eye from Edward,
There was never a road in sight.
Watched by a trillion eyes,
Along woodland trails,
Beneath a latticework of branches,
Past clearings, hamlets and streams,
To the symphony of trills,
The cacophony of birds,
A billion different buzzes,
Rustles and startled cries,
He marched.
Caterpillars and crickets
Beetles and bugs,
Bear, boar and beaver,
Squirrels and stoats
Voles and shrews,
Hedgehog, fox and ferret,
Deer and dormouse,
Wolf and wolverine,
Lizard, snake and slowworm.
Jay and owl,
Eagle and falcon,
Osprey, harrier and egret.
Bit by bit,
A tree here a tree there,
A pond filled a hedge grubbed,
Piece by piece,
A stream here a stream there,
A trillion becomes a billion,
The cacophony subsides,
Piano replaces forte.
The wind howls in rage
Across denuded hills.
A torrent of tears falls across the
The naked land.
An emerald ocean of waving leaves
Subsides to the naked skin,
With just a thin green underwear covering
To hide its shame.
Vibrant becomes calm.
Dangerous becomes tame.
Many become few,
Noisy becomes peaceful,
Complex becomes simple,
Slowly, gradually
Piece by piece
So we do not notice
What has gone.
Until we believe
The green desert
Is really nature;
That the agricultural wasteland
Is the countryside;
That the red tractor
Spraying the fields
Is part of our
Bucolic heritage.
The last vestiges
Creep away to hide
As the chemicals
Soaks the soil,
As the plough
Turns the sods
As the culvert is laid,
The unneeded pond
Filled in,
And the last hedges
Covered in nets.
If Harold was to return
And survey the green desert
We have created,
And compare it to
That emerald ocean,
He knew so well,
I wonder if he would still
Believe it was worth
Dying for?
Opher – 19.4.2019
I had to be a little loose with the creatures of those times. By the time Harold came along the last bear had been killed at least four hundred years in the past. But the wolf and beaver were there right up until the 17th century when they were hunted out of existence.
What we take as the beautiful British countryside is really nothing more than an open air industrial site. It bears no comparison with real nature.
What we see as the rich tapestry of nature is the tiny rump of what was once flourishing here.
We don’t even know what we have lost.
A traveller through time from a thousand years before would not recognise this green desert we have created.
My Britain – a country worth dying for?
Untold trillions have.
She would probably shake her head and weep. I know I do.