This poem was used by a school in Ireland in their new school
garden, carefully protected. The poem was printed on sheets of
paper, then attached to all kinds of wooden boards and walls and
other things, to remind these careful and committed gardeners
of what can and does happen all too often to fields. This hedgerow
death occurred on the last green edges of a lovely natural field. A
supermarket had been built and a garage and a host of other things
but somehow later buildings were so antipathetic that they finished
off what was left of that lovely and much loved field. And just about
finished me off, too.
DEATH OF A HEDGEROW
There was a death here in the field last night
As stars roared down in furious fists of light,
Fiery angels falling upon the wrecked and bone wracked field
That held the little dead close to its poor and wretched ground,
Angels wept and still are weeping.
The cries of lost frail birds pierced the grieving air,
As the hedgerow with its white blossom and its red,
Its spiders and its spider web,
Its nests of twigs and thin sheep hair
Are ripped out, crushed, and the field laid bare.
The pink dog-rose and the quiet teazle,
The dark green leaves called ‘bread-and-cheese,’
Crisp and sour upon the tongue.
The honey sip from ferocious nettle
That once found rest in the dark hedgerow,
Below the honeysuckle and the wild pink rose,
Gone now and forever gone.
Now the fiery angels,
Lift the little tender dead in burning arms,
Roar with fury as steel and brick and concrete
Press the primrose and the snowdrop down,
Destroy the buttercup and the rabbit tracks,
Wreck small forgotten stands of corn,
And at the last, kill the gentle quaking grass.
The hedgerow has gone
And my heart is breaking.
© Gwen Grant.
