Fields like that
Not corn fields with their rigid rules
all dressed the same like private schools,
with no way out but to go round
the long path, ever to be bound.
Not tatties in their furrowed raws
in hiding till their drowning shaws
are pulled aboard by saving hands
to fill the hoppers in these lands.
Nor vineyards heaving, dripping fruit
beneath that unremitting brute
who bows the back and twists the trunk
to squeeze the last drop to be drunk.
For I would rather lie in bed
with mother weeping at my head
than scattered in a field like these,
with expectations to appease.
But find a fallow, wind-swept moor
with dry-stone walls, its bed still pure,
where Lapwing loops and Curlews chat:
yes, scatter me in fields like that.
9/9/24