…we don’t need to own property, we just need to connect with the land..

I own no land

Except that which is fenced in by

Hedges laid by my inexpert hands

And others

The wisdom of tradition

Tradition of wisdom

Empowering growth

When my arm swings true

It is and is not mine

*

I own no land

Except that carpeted by scattered seeds

We work the weft with rattle

Fancy tufts of knapweed

Sophisticated burnet

A dash of shocking vetchling pink

I know this blooming meadow

Is and is not mine

*

I own no land

Except that which is supported by

The thorn oak spindle rose we planted

Investments made

That are and are not mine

*

I own no land

But have an upper storey

Some northern hills

Furnished well with pine and birch

Attic stocked with montane scrub

When peat has stained my fingertips

It is and is not mine

*

I own no land

Except the rooms created

When we cleared the glade

Or the pools among the reeds

With lovely laughter

As cosy as the warm soft mud I fell in

That was and was not mine

*

I own no land

My shares are all invested in

This green company I work with/for

I’m mortgaged to the hilt

For a cloud of wings

A thread of song

A jewelled eye

This grass flower here

This bee

I think the land owns me

I am sorry but cauliflower is off the menu

A series of extreme weather events

Have drastically reduced our harvest

We are sorry for any inconvenience

We know this is likely to cause disappointment

And possibly civil unrest

We know you are a good person

You came here on public transport

And chose the vegetarian option

We suggest that all you really can do

Is go home, curl up, and cry

Or join Extinction Rebellion

And fight

For your right

To eat cauliflower

 

I wrote no new poetry

The poetry was all already there

Do I need to add another stone

To those so expertly placed

By the land itself

And those who went before?

Here are a few short poems from various times

The first is from March 2018, when I was in the Peak District, and saw my first ever merlin

March merlin

A slaty arrowhead pierced me through

And flew

The grouse hiccuped excitement

A swarm of peewit tumbled delight

And I

Melted like snow into the ice-blue sky

 

Bees in my garden

Each one

Is like a drop of nectar in my day

I sip

The sweet bumble

While the miners

Dig for victory

And the leafcutter

Snips a piece from my heart

And seals it tight

Against disaster

 

Dunnock

Dear little hedge sparrow

Picking up the scraps

Dropped by that bright goldfinch

This is dedicated to XR and to Greta Thunberg. It’s about a moth I met in the Scottish Highlands in April: the marvellously named Rannoch Brindled Beauty. The flightless female simply crawls to the top of the nearest plant to send out her pheromones to attract males for breeding. The senses of the males are so amazing they can detect the female from miles away. Something about this moth sitting there so patiently reminded me of Greta sitting outside the Swedish government building with her sign.

Brindled Beauty: for Greta

She sits

Atop a myrtle bush

Wingless

She cannot fly

But sends out her desire

Her future dreams

Through the unsuspecting air

Her belief

In future generations

Borne upon the breeze

Hope of the unseen

Messaged across the barren lands

And am I powerless?

 

So here’s one I wrote in May. Hillcourt Farm is the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust site I volunteer at, beautiful low lying meadows on the Worcestershire/Gloucestershire border.

 

When all around is dark

I sail into light upon

This place, this ark

The waves crash

But this land is strong and deep

Steadied by oak and willow

Piloted by the racing hare

Lifted by the lark

Tossed on waves of meadow flowers

Decked with blackthorn

I sail away from storm

Carried by this land, this place

Lifted up on wings of song

Falling only into warm depths of mud and rush and reed

Sometimes I think this ark will carry me

And all its precious cargo

Turtle dove and nightingale

Bee and bird and butterfly

Bearing us safely through the storm

Or is my faith misjudged?

Is this song I hear

Only the violins on the decks of the Titanic

Doomed to drown?

 

Technology is not my friend. I have been trying to set up a wordpress site and make it connect to Facebook. It’s all very difficult. Anyway, here is a poem, let’s see where it goes

Brainwashed

At some point

I stepped out of that childhood bath

Of sibling splashes and squiggling toes

The well-used bar of soap slipped out of my hands

Someone replaced it with a plastic bottle

Thoughtless addiction of my adulthood

Repeat prescription: we’ve run out, get some more

And now I lie amongst the discarded bottles

Of a 40-year-long binge

Grey water remnants of bubbles popped

I can’t even remember how it started

But as the bath runs out

I pray I can hold on to some redemption

In this bar of vegan soap

So I have decided to start publishing some of my poetry. I’m a techno dunce so it’s all a bit daunting, on top of the concern about baring the soul and inviting criticism. But maybe it’ll be good for me.

I feel that I need to start with an explanation of why I have called this blog Lesne’s Earwig

This may or may not be the first poem

This little creature has come to represent a vast array of meanings for me, over the past few weeks

It’s pronounced Lean by the way, to rhyme with mesne

I went on an insects course led by one of those wonderful obsessives with infectious enthusiasm: you know the type I mean

His name is Gary Farmer

Well until I went on that course I had no idea that there was more than one type of Earwig

The Common Earwig, Forficula auricularia, has always somewhat given me the creeps

But Gary explained that there are actually three types of Earwig

And one, the Lesne’s Earwig only appeared in Worcestershire in 1999

And only since at selected sites

Well to cut a long story short, two weeks later I found a Lesne’s Earwig, Forficula lesnei on my local nature reserve

And I felt such joy 

Why? It speaks to me of biodiversity

Of how dislike can become love, with understanding

Of something special hidden in familiar surroundings

It is, in fact, a kind of magic, this Lesne’s Earwig 

A week later, in my yoga class, the teacher suggested we express our practice as devotion to a specific person or higher spirit

And what came into my head was

Lesne’s Earwig

Who somehow evolved into both god and a kind of cartoon character

Like the cricket in Pinocchio but more humble, more British and more wise

The Earwig now follows me wherever I go

Representing madly all I believe in nature

And the truth of climate change

Remember the fact that Lesne’s Earwigs were first found here only 20 years ago?

The truth is, they’re marching north

And although first represented their true power just to me

May one day become our mighty overlords

Because my cartoon god does have a sense of humour

And being so very figurative it ought to be a poem

But this god is not melodic

Possibly hampered by a slightly awkward scientific name

(Unlike it’s cousin Forficula auricularia)

The Earwig lesnei seems somehow to prefer

To write itself in prose..

But consents to supervise