Someone will have to stand, to raise their voices.
Unlikely to be the people five miles high
underlining death sentences in vapour trails.
It could be the beech trees, fluent in the west wind.
Anger in the creak and clash of boughs in protest
from their knoll that takes its bearing from true North.
They wait as if for raiders crossing the border,
also for truth-tellers with their parables.
Root and branch, part of the hill; their centuries
locked in a ring as copse for no apparent reason
except to argue in favour of continuance:
leaf and fall, shimmer and the skeletal
share generosity of seasons in each travelling year.
They hold their own. Perhaps a walker, passing
between the copse and grain, fallow and pasture
would pause, and hear their warning in translation.
Martyn Halsall
Martyn Halsall's poetry explores meeting places between ecology and theology in the wide-angle landscapes of Northumberland. Born in Lancashire, he studied in London before entering journalism, later completing post-graduate degrees in creative writing at the universities of Lancaster and Cumbria. His latest collection is Lent, (Wild Goose Publications).