FIELDS AT CHURCH FARM

Continuing in the farm yard I came across this poem recently which I wrote a few years ago whilst in France. We were living in the depths of the countryside amongst a farming community, and I was reminded very much of my own farming background and started to recall the names and places on the farm in Bratton where I had spent so many happy hours. I realize the names of fields will not mean a great deal to a reader, but within them there seems to be a poetry and history which I was afraid of losing if not penned for posterity.
Here are my few verses:-

Lattermead and Home Ground,
Pond Close and Lane Ground…
Fifty years on I remember the names
of the fields at the Farm where I lived and remained
until the age of nine or ten and often later still –
walking, discovering and exploring up and down Bratton Hill.

Ten Acres and Six Acres, and Northfield becoming Northacre,
Furlong Close and many Grounds –
Big and Long, and then Southdown.
How did Betty’s get its name? –
running through that field the day the glider came…
A new foal born, beautiful and dainty down in Bottom Ground,
bordering the bottom road to Wincanton – our local town.

The wide expanse of Big Rush Leas with each side Lower and Higher,
situated on the Down, names of romance to inspire…
Where to find the best primroses – along which sunny bank?
Or to seek out special orchids growing beside a stream, dark and dank;
Many hours walking the gulleys, under bridges stooping low,
sitting perched high above a load of hay pulled by a horse – steady and slow.
The patch of stinging nettles into which I ran and jumped,
or the day we lost the donkey behind a grassy hump!

I often return and walk the fields around the farm again –
orchards and meads, hills and hollows, firmly planted in my brain…
the beginnings of life, the start of things remembered and recalled,
real, visual and immediate, the clarity with which I can see them all –
at times perhaps a little hazy or hidden, superseded, and almost relinquished,
but so indelibly printed, never entirely forgotten or extinguished.

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