Hedge Layer-Gap Mender Poem by Bob Dellar

Hedge layer, gap-mender
forged from frost and fissured trees;
your split hazel brash,
a white slash against
black wintered leaves.

Rhythm of the billhook
rhythm of the fields
deft, quick, sure,
sharpening the air
with slash, cuts and

stakes spear shaped, stuck notched
crooked up, tawny bark
peeled green in places,
hint of dormant
summer traces.

Wood rips, wood rends, wood gives,
wood cries out as far as the far fields;
Welsh Cobbs black as stout
start as one, rising pall of horse breath
blots out the sallow-sun.

Hedge layer, gap-mender,
glove-less, hands seasoned old-hand;
resurrector, life pleacher,
Green Man for the Common Era;

within your living walls
you weave the spring.