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Bound

We were set here by men who served the last Duke

but seven, to keep their sons

from the commons their fathers had furrowed.

Our buds once promised light and love.

Our growth was pea-stick, hurdle and tinder;

our nuts and berries, nourishment.

We were shaped by billhook and backbreak,

cut and plashed with song and sweat.

We shaded ploughboys’ rest.

Our vaults were once a symphony hall

whose choir was blackbird, dunnock and thrush.

Our dusks are quieter now.

We stood as windbreak and boundary.

Today electric fences fold the flocks.

Our gaps mock title deeds and tenancies.

We’ve not been tended since the men 

who worked the ground we guard

fell to keep it free.

We are rank and silent.

We fall in line,

surrender to the flail.

Carl Tomlinson