Many thanks to the author for allowing her marvellous poem to be reproduced here:
Tetley Field
planning app. ref. no. 16/02583/OT
Her Green Belt is being tightened
her gold buttercups lightweight
on the balance sheet.
She is accused of being a scrubber
unkempt, unfashionable
of being down and dirty.
But she is fecund, generous.
Her grass grows meadowed to the sun
she is brambled, oak strewn.
She succours field mice
thatched over in grassy clumps.
Butterflies suck at purpled thistles
and city dogs, blooded in her
strew small velvet corpses,
pick blackberries with delicate teeth.
She embraces autumn, celebrates
in a gold leaf makeover
red berried, luxuriant
but shawls herself in white
snow deep
for the solstice moon.
She practises temperature inversion
and we stand, puddled in her mud
our heads high on mist.
Síle Moriarty
© December 2016
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