A little something recorded for the 2020 Online Cambridge Mill Road Winter Fair.
A major piece of my own poetry he said taking the mickey or what,
its brevity represents the fundamental flatness of the landscape as perceived by many people.
Fenland 1
Some say its flat,
but I am not having that,
cos it's not!
Now you see it, now you don’t.
It seemed a strange game to play while walking in the fens but here it was in action, I saw it while walking a dyke fringed track between fields where a tractor was working hard pulling a plough.
Black smoke billowing out from its exhaust it worked across the field, the wavering breeze blowing both the tall reeds in the dykes and the exhaust smoke in waves.
As I walked along the track I could see the undulations of the field’s surface, the soil sometimes black sometimes grey, the rich peat and the underlying clay.
The tractor moved across the field and as I watched I saw it dip and disappear out of view for a short while, all gone except for the exhaust smoke above the wavering reeds.
As I stood looking it reminded me of watching a ship at sea, the ship riding through the bucking waves, now the ship now just the smoke billowing, now you see it now you don’t.
I thought of how the peat fens had been formed, water flooding the land building the peat and yet it was water that kept the drained soil still, wind blowing it from field to field, now you see it now you don’t.
Soil, sun, air and water each one in productive measure, the rich fens growing bountiful crops year after year for ever?
We take it for granted and carry on and on, plant and harvest plant and harvest, three crops a year in places they say.
That bountiful fenland soil so rich and valuable that has been shrinking for years, what of its future. Erosion, drought, over cropping it could all be gone. Not what they intended for this Landscape or should that be Manscape.
Again now you see it, now you don’t.
It seemed a strange game to play while walking in the fens but here it was in action, I saw it while walking a dyke fringed track between fields where a tractor was working hard pulling a plough.
Black smoke billowing out from its exhaust it worked across the field, the wavering breeze blowing both the tall reeds in the dykes and the exhaust smoke in waves.
As I walked along the track I could see the undulations of the field’s surface, the soil sometimes black sometimes grey, the rich peat and the underlying clay.
The tractor moved across the field and as I watched I saw it dip and disappear out of view for a short while, all gone except for the exhaust smoke above the wavering reeds.
As I stood looking it reminded me of watching a ship at sea, the ship riding through the bucking waves, now the ship now just the smoke billowing, now you see it now you don’t.
I thought of how the peat fens had been formed, water flooding the land building the peat and yet it was water that kept the drained soil still, wind blowing it from field to field, now you see it now you don’t.
Soil, sun, air and water each one in productive measure, the rich fens growing bountiful crops year after year for ever?
We take it for granted and carry on and on, plant and harvest plant and harvest, three crops a year in places they say.
That bountiful fenland soil so rich and valuable that has been shrinking for years, what of its future. Erosion, drought, over cropping it could all be gone. Not what they intended for this Landscape or should that be Manscape.
Again now you see it, now you don’t.