We have not left the wild woods,
we islanders.
London is a forest full of urban foxes
pitter - pattering between the houses
late at night.
And trees are everywhere in this city,
Gentle gods granting shopping malls and
civic centres
permission to exist -
Permission to fill up the glades and copses
with hotels and condominiums - with flashy
multiplexes -
& sombre public schools.
But when, in one sad rush, like flocks of swallows,
Citizens load their cars with bags and boxes
packed with bits and bobs they think important -
passports in top pockets -
Euros in hot hands. -
(All jobs lost. - All contracts binned and burned.) -
Storms will tug at leaves - splinter ancient branches
above convoys of vehicles
retreating from these streets of broken dreams.
Most people gone,
wild bracken and blackberries,
sturdy oaks, moss and weeping willows,
will soon break through the rows of red brick
houses,
leaving just a darkening in the subsoil,
a shadow like that of a Roman Polis.
Then curious foxes - feral - deadly - graceful,
will find a peace their forbears never knew,
And soaring high above the dying city
Skylarks view a jungle without end.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
January 17th. - 18th. - 21st. - 22nd.- 23rd. 2021.
On the radio this morning the novelist Nadifa Mohamed remarked, "London is a forest", referencing the vast number of trees in the capitol. Within minutes I started to write this poem, living as I do, in a suburb rich in trees. I then recalled that the last time Britain broke radically with Europe at the fall of the Roman Empire, Londinium reverted to nature until King Alfred the Great, a true European, restored the city. The gamekeepers were living in the new woodlands because mankind always thinks it is in control of nature, which of course will never be true. Poetry must always have a sense of fun however serious the subject may be.
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