Sunflower

Down at the pub, the rumours had soon spread :
our local farmer’s selling off his land.
When goat-man left and pheasant farm shut down,
we realised there was truth in what was said.

Soon, other tenants left their grazing land –
moved horses on, their meadows left to weeds,
rusty with ragwort, pastures overgrown –
a change the roaming deer can’t understand.

Birds leave the hedgerows, rabbits on the run
as men and their machines rip up the land;
at the site entrance they erect a sign :
Building Communities For Everyone…

But not for hawthorn, fox, orchid or deer –
those residents have gone, their fields stripped bare.
On this sterile plane earth’s heaped in piles,
nothing’s left alive on the levels here.

Pipes and bricks arrive all summer long
but, while the men were busy on the site,
nature crept back to green those heaps of soil
and, on the highest, planted something strong.

Unnoticed, this plant grew more each day
till giant golden face turned to the sun.
This was nature’s turn, a defiant sign –
two fingers to those stealing land away.