We lost a beautiful village path
\nthat wandered across a hill
\nbehind the railway.<\/p>\n
Once bats flitted through the branches
\nof dark overhanging trees,
\nin their dusk display.<\/p>\n
Blackbirds, chaffinches, and tiny wrens,
\namong the tangled hedges
\nloved to hide and play.<\/p>\n
Then a farmer drove his tractor and
\ncut it with a brutal flail, that
\nblasted it away.<\/p>\n
Old bushes, elder, rose, and briar
\nwere ripped and splintered, each gone,
\ndestroyed in a day.<\/p>\n
Bare roots, forlorn and bent, stuck out
\nof rutted tyre tracks, left like
\nsigns along the way.<\/p>\n
I fail to see that this is progress,
\nwith nature’s extravagance
\ntamed and made to pay.<\/p>\n
Just like politicians flail around,
\ntrying to tame a virus
\nwith a bold display.<\/p>\n
Regulations changing almost weekly
\nto cut our every movement,
\nwhere we shop or stay.<\/p>\n
But, come the springtime, bursting freely,
\nnature will heal, grow again,
\nrevive, come what may.<\/p>\n
Is it too much to hope we shall revive,
\nbegin to live again? Or will our
\nsplintered world remain?<\/p>\n
November 2020<\/p>\n