Harvest time in Worcestershire,
As damp September rained its last,
Back from Scotland, brief returning,
As the weekend cycled past...
In a village by the roadside,
Drying earth gives up its yield,
Garlanded with silks and turbans,
Delhi in an English field.
On the way there on the
towpath,
Erect white swans that guard their young,
Arching brood of dusky cygnets,
Rise from reeds they hide among.
Back in Lothian, Moss Hall
Farm,
Few remain, less than a third,
Once in Scotland were four thousand,
Now twelve hundred dairy herds.
Seattle back in the late '90s,
Nazis smash shop window panes,
Kristallnacht back in the '30s,
Anti-global just the same.
Edinburgh, the G8 conference,
Hypocrites throw peace and bricks,
Though they won't own their agenda,
Thugs are thugs and sticks are sticks.
In Worcestershire the BNP,
Would begrudge this meagre pay,
Send home to a foreign country,
Brush these harvesters away.
Socialists pretend to differ,
Touchy-feely, sham consult,
Would cry 'foul' and 'exploitation',
Send them home - the same result.
'Home' would be a Brummy
terrace,
Prison inner-cityscape,
Left or Right wing would deny them,
This weekend's too brief escape.
White-beard turbans, grey-haired
saris,
What would they all make of this?
Their kids wouldn't want to come for
Manual work they would dismiss.
Their kids would like all the
others
Trainers and designer jeans,
Only wanting their Nintendo,
Disdain work and rural scenes.
Sixties songs of
coffee-coloured
Melting pots were full of hope.
Now it's coming true in earnest,
Stretched ideals no longer cope...
With reality unfolding,
Never quite as planned it seems,
Never easy to inherit,
Someone else's shining dreams.
Andy Morley September 23rd
2007
