Surrey Hills Landscape Assessment
Poems
In The Flax Field
by Stephen Plaice
Over the last stile before the station -
a fading blue carpet down to the stream -
flax - antique crop of the papermakers.
I started on the footpath imagining
lost Junes and the heaven it must have been
for lovers who came here once
and chose this place for their coupling.
Halfway across, a plump balloon
in brilliant panelled polyesters
cleared the glossy stand of trees.
It hung in the evening air, then fired up
and drifted disdainful on its way,
leaving me in the darkening field,
caught between my thoughts and its going.
For this, was it really for this
the cottagers stooped over the plough,
and the field-girls embraced the corn
cutting and binding till they bled?
Just so Lord Leisure might one day
rise up in his ample basket
to survey the county they had made?
No sooner asked than I come across
the lovers lying in the flax four centuries ago.
He's snoring on his back
She's gazing upwards at the hills,
wondering why the rainbow
so vivid when they crossed the stile,
leaves no trace in all this blue.
© Countryside Agency/Stephen Plaice
The Sunken Lane
by Stephen Plaice
Who is that coming up the sunken lane?
Is it the owlers lugging their barrels?
Is it the navvies shouldering their shovels?
Is it the broomsquires hawking their besoms?
Is it the burners turned off the commons?
Is it the hammermen leaving their ponds?
Is it the coppicers waving their wands?
Who is that coming up the sunken lane?
Who is that coming up the sunken lane?
Is it the Swing-men bound for the gallows?
Is it the tinkers smoked from their hollows?
Is it the sailors deserting the fleet?
Is it the peddlars with rotting feet?
Is it the constables chasing the crooks?
Is it the quakers bashing their books?
Who is that coming up the sunken lane?
Who is that coming up the sunken Lane?
Is it Wat Tyler inciting the peasants?
Is it the poacher stealing our pheasants.
Is it the troopers the justices sent?
Is it the pilgrims heading for Kent?
Is it the highwayman waiting to rob them?
Is it the Diggers heading for Cobham?
Who is that coming up the sunken lane?
Who is that coming up the sunken lane?
Is it the burglars clinking their jemmies?
Is it the beggars begging for pennies?
Is it the jobless of no fixed abode?
Is it the dongas stopping the road?
Is it the dossers swigging their brew?
Is it the kids breaking curfew?
Who is that coming up the sunken Lane?
Who is that coming up the sunken lane?
Is it the puma stalking his dinner?
Is it the Christ pursuing a sinner?
Is it the maniac with a hedge-trimmer?
Is it the vicar with Mrs Rimmer?
Is it the Germans through Dorking Gap?
Is it the Blacks off the Hog's Back?
Is it the Martians landed in Farnham?
Is the door locked?
Is the alarm on?
The Jag in the garage?
The premium paid?
The tank in the garden?
The land mines laid?
Gardener loyal? Security sober?
Is it all over? O is it all over?
Who is that coming up the sunken lane?
© Countryside Agency/Stephen Plaice
Danger of grounding
by Sandra Stevens
Satellite of the south side of the city
Surrey surrenders its stores to the curiosity
of commuters to common countryside culture,
Signs warn of Noise surveys
and suchlike, dictate Footpath
No Horses, No cycles. Danger
of Death on a telegraph pole
in emergency contact Seeboard
035 045110. He says
Bracken is carcinogenic
Don't breathe. Suggests
gaiters against ticks and encephalitis,
I would give the earth
for a bit of grounding,
No danger of that I fear.
© Countryside Agency/Sandra Stevens
Normally a great one for names
I long for a namelessness of dither and dapple
for daylight and darkness to pattern the tarmac
down these hollow lanes to the Common.
© Countryside Agency/Sandra Stevens
Excerpt from Lord Over Beast and Leaf, Here (what more to you want?)
by Sandra Stevens
Catch your breath and have no fear
keep calm coming upon an opening
gap at the edge of the old wood
see through tangles of tumbling trees
a shaft of light through beech leaves
trust in the rugged trunk of an oak
its hardwood hug its cracked core
in touch with the rub of rough mud
the crust sharp and cakemix crumble
below soil and earth worth its weight
of rich leafmould on sunken paths
ditches of dark dug-outs drenched
underworld caves of beechtree roots
and the soft gloom of an ironstone chunk
and here as it passes a rush of air
flushing the dust fresh off the branches
and the flurry of leafage and thin twig
when a wave of wind weaves its way
from hills to weald and on to the sea
for there's no fear of growth and change
of life and death of green and brown
of sap and root and branch of bracken
gorse and heathland chalk and sand
and slopes and flats of far and near
or wind and storm out of the blue
the rhythms and patterns and weathers and seasons
the sproutings and twinings and droopings and fallings
the shifting and drifting from seedling to compost
are the givings and takings of comings and goings
Walk through with a sure foot.
For fear comes when you most expect it.
Fear is knowing what others might do.
Fear comes with records and forward projection.
Fear is of human intervention.
Conceivably, we invented our own alarm,
interrupting the cycles of healing and harm
with supreme confidence in human invention
and our right to profit from the natural environment.
We introduced with equanimity non-indiginous species,
and a variety of mechanical and technical innovations,
we exploited the abundance of mineral deposits,
we harnessed the potential of the water courses,
we constructed factories to produce ammunition,
designed landscapes for aesthetic perspectives,
and generally considered it the prime opportunity
of our collective condition as homo sapiens
- this ability to explore and exploit possibilities,
interfering or neglecting according to our requirements.
The current situation is undeniably complex.
The public prefers its nature undisturbed,
imagining some idyll, and resenting regulation.
The term management is anathema to them.
in their ignorance, they fail to recognise
that this terrain, with its flora and fauna,
has for centuries been managed by humans.
We are obliged to manage, and manage better
than the majority of our arrogant predatory predecessors;
and our targets for maintaining biodiversity are mandatory.
However, we constantly encounter difficulties.
Our intentions appear to be under suspicion.
regardless of innumerable counter measures.
We provide cultural and historical information
and assorted displays of ecological data
for visitors; indicate desirable routes
and vantage points; and clarify permissions
or restrictions, prohibition, caution, etcetera.
We have dual priorities: to facilitate access,
but prevent the destruction of essential habitats.
A certain employee expressed the necessity
to inculcate concern through indoctrination.
Coincidentally, it would appear some contend
we extrapolate anxiety and infect perception;
and that a preference for classical linguistic terminology
is a reflection of a persistent conviction of superiority.
I do not want to be broken in
I want the feel of easing limbs
And the skin's pores opening
I do not want to break in
to thickets where ticks cling and suck
and dump their muck and roots clutch
at the edge of a rutted track and stuff
falls and rots and soaks and sprouts
and weird weeds wake in the ditch
from seed and mess of moss and earth
burst out of a bank with a watery throb
a stink of a knob that's just the job
for a mob of flies to stick tongues in
to lick and spit make ruck and ruin
and blow the sporey horn of life
while wasps are at work with a caterpillar
and quick ants act on what matters
haul bits about and get rid of clutter
and do the odd butterfly a turn or two
sorting out the life of the silver-studded blue
And I'll try not to trample the tiniest spider
Cross my heart and wish to die sir.
I will not add my havoc here.
Just stay still long enough to
Hear the nightjar's earthly churr.
For I have no lust to take over.
© Countryside Agency/Sandra Stevens
