The Blue-Grey Tones
of Pennant Stone
The blue-grey tones of Pennant stone
with here and there, a splash of green,
where hart's tongue fern has got its hold,
shows on the wall between the fields.
It has been there for many scores of years
lichened in places, moss begrown.
Corners worn smooth, where cows,
in time past counting, have used it
as a scratching post; easing the itches
on their mottled hides with gentle rubs.
Safe in a hole where mortar's leached away,
a titmouse has reared her young for many years
since she found the place; a sheltered cave,
secure from harm. Her brood, fed well from grubs
and errant caterpillars, has scattered through the trees
until next spring. If they survive, they'll raise a family.
In the nettles growing by its foot, a colony of scabious
and 'knit-bone', common comfrey, escaped perhaps
from some white witches cottage garden plot,
is struggling to survive. While in the ashen post
which holds the gate, carpenter bees are busy
plastering up the holes which hold their eggs.
Here in this gentle corner of an English field,
we find diversity, ecology, interrelationship;
the intermingling of a dozen things and more
which we, in these days all too readily destroy.
Copyright 2002 Ben Grader
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