THE DIARY OF A LINCOLNSHIRE SHEEP~STEALER

in six parts

.

this Lincolnshire .. .

.

it begins .. . 

                               .I.

squashed brown, glassy marbles

   as much as one big taw or a boulder

in playground exchange, a ten second

   glance at the showy-girl’s knickers

while the old girl makes cow-eyes

   she, but twenty others passing by

eating grass before they fertilise

   varied colours, all have shiny eyes

.

this Lincolnshire is nothing special

   rabbits on the hop, hares and badgers

fields in different shades of umber colours

   some pale, some clay, some colour o’trout

jump to fisheries, where ‘the sleeping man’

   is one of life’s mysteries from Grimsby

to River Lym that babbles, or Somersby

   there you can listen, to words by Tennyson

.

an otter seen at Stickney dyke

   places I trundle on my bike

unseen, yet I hear scavengers cry

   a buzzard family of four I spied

one mile over auburn mounds of hay

   Maginot lines under skies of grey

haystack sketches in a book I drew in

   the local art of Charlie Haseldine

.

prairie fens stretch far as Wyoming

   Serengeti dried by the heat of sun

rhino imagined where fallow deer roam

   wander in confines of stately homes

grassy wolds prove the lie that spills

   there are no hills within this rolling shire

dales, moor, marsh briar, coastal fenland

   commended as an international wetland

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                              .II.

.

if I were fenslodger’s son with musket gun

   two barrels o’lead in reed beds well hidden

bag of godwit, brace of ruff, one plump bittern

   boot waders, calico coat, a three cornered hat

I’d greet thee at dawn, set sale upon the lee

   tides rushing in, partners in crime who hum

‘oh God our help in ages’ smoke pipes of clay

   birds flew, we bag a gargeneye for the stew

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                             .III.

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salute then Dutch men’s arrival, his

   instruments of change and drainage

engineers hired to stick their fingers in

   myth and fact subsist ’til John Rennie

labour of the many with pick and shovel

   they dug trenches, dykes and sluices

drained fenland marshes, muddied waters

   fenslodgers soon departed

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paid off by tribute for their trouble

   thus and thus the economy grew

new farmland too and towns

   where new people paid new taxes

new houses where once were swamps

   new roads, lanes, farms and tracks

new Lincoln grew, old Boston too

   Caistor, Bourne, tulips, sugar-beet n’tats

.

Stamford welcomes ruling classes

   central hilly parts, n’ leafy wolds

the stoat and deer that dart

   clear the moat, load the cart

for Percy Grainger, Aussie stranger

   who learned thy folk tradition

his wisdom culturally allied to

   Frederick Delius, a Yorkshireman

.

whose music coloured in and then

   coloured up our market towns

iron Brigg, historic Gainsborough

   to the north or down beside

the Deepings, o’ flat lands

   your skies full of wonder

cannot hold the thunder of their birth

   yet hold such scintillating light 

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                              .IV.

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the sheep-markets, the Viking Way

   Scunthorpe, villages as Brumby

names with Yorkshire drawl

   set on their knees did crawl, west

farmers held sway o’ richest topsoil

   tho’ not thar’ many wages pay

except thou were a farm servant

   denied a wife or much life at all

.

’till the military call, or news broke

   of higher wages on the borders

across the sea in New England

   or in Albertland, New Zealand

where a colony of 1,000 departed

   excited by ‘conquest of the free’

we drafted immigrants long afore

   one came over from Balkan sea

.                 

                              .V.

.

Buttercup sways in the meadow

   old Lucy, mothers bereft

their bullocks journeyed to the abattoir

   this bright morning wi’ sheep n’pigs

once we travelled in to market towns

   Alford, Market Raisen, Low-eth

while still we doff the cap to likes of Asda

   travel on in yon pantechnicon

        narrow roads, no passing

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                                .VI.

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In continuum ~

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I’ll not bandy words now with thee

   should thou so mardy laugh at me

this ‘Lincolnshire’ stands upon the wolds

   by coastal marshes off the wash

I came here a bandit on the run

   a sheep-stealer before the poet

carried my own palyass early to bed

   cut cauli’ with a hallowed knife

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in evening mizzling

   St Hugh doth splawder into view

not being of certainty of truth

   requiring cash to fix kirk’s roof

note the chimes of St Botolph

   spire-less church ne’er finished

.

the spires of this shire are many

   settled in their gentle dells

stand agin the sutty mumbles

   of an indigo sky that passes by

we on’t dark side of that thar rainbow

   with rooster crow, black footed jay

.

I stand atop the banks

   watch trawlers line up their return

to rivers Witham and the Humber

   tankers decked with lumber

from Norway, Scandinavia

   immigrants aboard cheat custom man

sewn pockets lined with stash

   I hear the ships horn

.

I stand atop the banks

   white owl advancing, hares prancing

I seen a parliament of owls at the Hobhole

   hen harriers at Scremby

Midsummer Night’s Dream at Casterton

   a black swan fly at Conningsby

yet never have I seen a better sky

   than those o’ Lincoln county

..

©edenbraytoday29.10.2021/03.07.2024)