Right now, the lower end of a certain large meadow should be thronging with Southern Marsh Orchids- Alas, meadow no more! All was ploughed under last year.
In memory of what we lost, the poem I wrote at the time of the destruction…
Given not many yards, they would have been spared:
They could have been spared, they should have been spared.
But you-know-who didn’t care:
He just didn’t care, he just didn’t care, he just didn’t care.
In bit the steel blade,
The bright blade, the sharp blade –
And no more summer displays,
No more summer displays, farewell those purple displays.
Yellow rattle gone as well,
Gone as well, gone to Hell:
No more meadowy dell,
Sweet meadowy dell, hay-swathed meadowy dell.
And as for the skylarks,
The heartlifting skylarks:
No more nesting for them,
No nesting for them, never nesting for them again.
We mourn for those birds,
And those precious wild flowers:
Yes – that field, it is his;
But the orchids were ours.
But the orchids were ours,
Were our children’s, and ours:
But the orchids were ours,
Were our children’s, and ours.
And when the children ask why,
Demand, “Why?”, all cry, “Why?” –
How will we reply?
How will we reply?
© Christopher Jessop 2019