No-Till Poetry

[martian]

I thought it was about time we had a poem. Here's one from Groundswell's poet in residence:

 

[martian]

Ok, here's another one, this time from John Landers

 

[martian]

Now you've all had enough time to absorb those two (I imagine some people have been learning them whilst combining), here's another one by Adam Horovitz, to help with the drilling:

 

[The Ruminant]

This isn’t about no-till, but more a comment on the destruction wrought by man (it's by Gerard Manley Hopkins and he wrote it after the felling of a clump of trees near Oxford in 1879):

My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
Of a fresh and following folded rank
Not spared, not one
That dandled a sandalled
Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow and river and wind-wandering
weed-winding bank.

O if we but knew what we do
When we delve or hew -
Hack and rack the growing green!
Since country is so tender
To touch, her being so slender,
That, like this sleek and seeing ball
But a pricck will make no eye at all,

Where we, even where we mean
To mend her we end her,
When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
Strokes of havoc unselve
The sweet especial scene,
Rural scene, a rural scene,
Sweet especial rural scene.



(PS I hope the spelling of the word 'pricck' doesn't detract from your enjoyment of the poem. TFF's autocorrect, replacing the word with 'plonker' certainly detracted....!!! )

 

[Goldilocks]

Must start learning some of these! According to radio 4 the other day whilst sat on a tractor learning poetry is a good way of staving off dementia.