a lost poem

This Is My Britain

So this is my Britain:

A land of green rolling hills and grubby cities.

This is the land that was once deep emerald green with oak forest,

Now a checkerboard of hedges and fields,

Criss-crossed with motorways.

A place where lush fields slope majestically into rippling lakes;

Where rocky shores thrust against crashing waves;

Where languid rivers cruise and meander through dappled woodlands and opulent meadows;

Where cows and sheep watch with big eyes

And multihued butterflies bob from nodding flower to nodding flower.

And away from the clicking throngs of humans it can send you crashing back through time.

On mountain tops where the wind, the misty rain, tears at you with a million pinpricks.

Gazing out through the slitted eyes of eagles,

On a rugged land that has endured for eons

And will endure for the length of our time.

A landscape that has seen mammoth and bison, sabre tooth and now – man;

And who knows what it will see again.

For on those peaks exposed to the mights of nature,

Where evidence of our industry is reduced to doll’s house cottages and wisps of smoke,

With that ever present patchwork of stone walls,

One can be transported to the knowledge that we will not always be here.

But the land will remain.

And this is an oasis we pass through;

A land of fecundity and water;

Sometime harsh and rugged;

Sometimes soft, warm and gentle.

A land of passion and variety;

A land that has offered abundance;

A land that offers opportunity to replenish the spirit.

Out of this land came that race we call the British.

A race that is now spread across the world in teeming millions.

A race that is no race – for we are hybrid and many-faced;

And therein lies our strength and vigour.

Though our language has struck forth from this tiny island to become a tongue of universality

We speak with no one voice.

Our speech, like the mix of our blood,

Like the scope of our genes,

Is borrowed and plundered from a thousand other voices,

And is all the stronger for it.

Since the first people strode on to these hills across the frozen channel,

When this land was just an appendix to Europe,

We have mixed and absorbed DNA:

Celt, Jute, Saxon, Angle, Roman, Dane and Norman.

And as the trade routes grew and the Empire prospered our blood grew richer with the genes of Arab African and Asian stock

And much was spilt from those bloody times,

And many deeds were struck out of sheer villainy,

For brutal pleasure or bigoted greed.

And there is much I feel leaves a taste of rancour and disgust.

For there have been times when this nation has wielded strength and used it for profit;

Struck forth in barbaric rage and crushed many a deserving butterfly.

And yet there are also times when it has nurtured and protected,

And we should not be blind to this.

This was a land of trees; great majestic giants;

Limbs stretching up towards deep blue skies and cotton-white clouds

With branch and twig to intersect against the drift of the universe,

And days in long grass meadows,

Where the warm breeze rustles,

The sun warms through to the soul.

The insects buzz,  stridulate and crawl past in industrious commerce,

Adrift in another world to ours.

Where faces and objects undulate in the fleecy smoke and curls of clouds,

Where the mind can be transported to contemplations of infinity:

The wonders of time and space.

For in those days in Britain time can be slowed;

As streams rush and gurgle;

As the mauve flowers of heather tinge the sweeping hillsides;

As the dragonfly settles on the bobbing bulrush;

As the skylark calls from its roost in the heavens;

The slowworm basks with the grassnake

And the fox lifts its head, closes its eyes and sniffs the air.

This can be a place of tranquillity, peace and plenty;

A place brimming with energy and ideas.

Standing on the ruins of a long abandoned hill fortress,

Looking down into the valley below,

Rain striking horizontally into your face,

Alone

One can feel the ghosts of the past standing with you.

Looking out through your eyes

At a landscape that has not changed,

And one is filled with awe.

Jerusalem was not built here

But Camelot probably was.

This is the land where Merlin walked,

Where Arthur and Canute forged kingdoms.

Where mystery and learning became venerated.

This is a land to which civilisation came late,

Is still struggling with its umbilical cord.

A land covered in woad while Asia, China and Africa wrote books,

Investigated maths

And laid down the rules of science.

And now, maybe we at last, have the words to make real poems;

Poems that may whisper on the winds of this planet long after we are gone

And even Britain is no more.

But for now this is my Britain

And I feel it.

Not in the city and the eyes of its people

But in the strength of its sunsets,

The steadfastness of its currents,

The proud thrust of its weathered rocks

The mystery of its past;

The ruggedness and obstinacy of its desolation;

The lazy endurance of its summers;

And the beauty of its life.

This is my Britain.

Opher – circa 2003

I wrote this poem about twenty years ago in response to a jingoistic brand of religious nationalism being touted by a new teacher at my school. He was a chubby-faced public school product; all Tory blue, bible-bashing God King and country.

His view of Britain and Empire, which he was not shy of sharing with the students, clashed with mine.

I thought I needed to produce an antidote.

I wrote this poem, but it to music by the pastoral composer Frinzi, and presented it to the school as an assembly.

I’m not sure that it was altogether understood by its intended target but I enjoyed it.

I was attempting to express my thoughts and feelings regarding this land in which I was born.

I am not patriotic. I see patriotism as a disease, along with nationalism. I am more of a universalist. I identify as a human being – with all our genius and flaws. All people, all cultures are interesting and valid. Cultures are rich and varied. All cultures have murky pasts and aspects that are unpleasant and downright nasty. None are perfect. Yet all produce a rich tapestry of art, music, dance, architecture and philosophy. It’s a smorgasbord of wealth.  I thrive on that and believe that is the real strength of Britain – we blend all these cultures; we’re mongrels.

I look back at our history with very mixed feelings. I see the great harm with have wrought with our Empire and colonial past. I also see the great benefits we have given the world. I often wonder if it balances out?

I certainly do not have the blinkered view that my race and culture is better than any other. There are many good things to celebrate and much to deplore. We can be violent and callous as well as nurturing and compassionate. We are ingenious, resolute and inventive. We have a rich social history with much to admire, foremost for me being the struggle for equality and freedom.

I guess, these days, you would describe these feelings as WOKE!!

I am woke!! My eyes are open to the horrors my culture has committed and the sins we still continue to commit. There are many aspects and attitudes I think we still need to confront and reconcile. I believe that only by facing up to, and acknowledging the darker side of our culture, can we hope to improve.

That is what woke means to me.

This poem is my anthem to woke.

I thought I’d lost it. When I retired I thought the tape and the sheets of poetry had been thrown away. I recently found the tape during our house move. I was so pleased. I feel quite an attachment to it. So I transcribed it.

Here it is. This is what Britain means to me. It’s the nearest I get to patriotism.