Engaged Poem by Sarah Wiltshire

An Offcumden - a walker on a land,
a land that's not been mine.
No ancestral roots, claiming deep descent.
A Being in transition, here to rest awhile.

As seasons pass, a new living sediment forms.
A laying down begins - a shifting, a sorting, a re-aligning.
A welcome is extended, a community embrace warmly offered and openly accepted.
Newness becomes local.

And Nature calls too.
Sapling-like breezes bend low with sea-salted offerings.
Whilst wind whipped warriors lay down an unsubtle gauntlet,
a show-down for the unbending will

Two Peaks in sight scale human habitation,
conferring upon those who stay, a view of continuity and change.
Water rushes, after night time storms.
Upfront and personal - this land now walks within me.

Offcumden - a Yorkshire word for someone not originally born locally.