I am of the fields

the ones in which my grandfather

used to toil and hunt rabbits

to feed nine mouths

always close at hand

in the distance

the horizons

the cattle-hooved mud at gates

the perpetual feeling of trespass

among the thistles nettles

and cow pats

the trees the largest objects of that world

my parents had left the meadows

to live in brand new local

authority housing

and benefit from modern technology

and labour-saving labours

the fields followed them as

lawns borders hedges weeds

wallpaper and cemeteries

I am of the fields

I played at soldiers there

and honed the loneliness

of the imagination

and learned how to die