Avonbridge Uprooted

Mechanical shovels scrape
the soft felt of your mossy slopes.
Torn brown welts bleed water, ooze clay,
and the tearing in my breast lays bare
the green that was my blood, turned grey.

And I am ankle deep in you,
my hands seek stone. My fingers,
searching suddenly naked boulders,
touch bone.

Once I grazed your skies,
sucked you on my tongue,
devoured you with my gaze,
filled pores with your dew.

You did not love me, expressed
disinterest with wind stroked grasses.
Your business was eternal, but you let
me share your curves, your hollows
and your wild despair.

The child I was saw risen larks
hung on crested air, wandered streams
hauntingly mocked by curlews,
made play hunting as hound
or running with the hare.

Our dreaming life understood
all but the rude stamp of steel
under the nightmare heel
of jackbooted gain

– and now it is you
laid open, wounded, raped,
made to weep black tears
down your seemed and haggard face
while the iron jaws keep crunching
and metal teeth tear flesh.

I turn from split rock, pull feet free
from this grey brown muck of you
– sun would have burned your scars
onto my sight, seared my brain
with this bruised skeleton.

Thank god for rain and, rich
as blood from bone, you rise in me.
I leave this open grave unmourned
– you are not here, and never were.