Forgotten Flocks Poem by C Richard Miles

When young, I used to wander, trail and trudge
And glumly grumble on the time-trod track
Along the heathery hillside to the ridge
And moan about my tiresome, toilsome trek
Until, at length, I struggled to the top
And glimpsed the distant vista of the dale
As setting sun’s last lamplight lit the tip
Of Sharphaw, in the mist, across the dell.

For there, beneath me, by the bubbling burn
Which rushed past green, lush tussocks in the field,
Beside the drab, dilapidated barn
The sheep would flock, assembling in the fold
And memories would flock, too, to my mind
Of distant evenings, clear and calm and cool
When, in the past, up to that lofty mound
Would float the fleeting sound of shepherd’s call.

Then, on the hushed, haze-hanging April air
Half-drenched with dew, half-white with early mist
That faint, bucolic chant would charm the ear:
A plaintive tune, more sorrowful than most,
That hearkened back to centuries long gone
When solitude was still the herder’s lot
Upon the hillside, armed with rustic gun,
To keep the wolf away when night got late.

He’d usher home the leaping, late-born lambs
To seek the safety of that sheltered nook
To rest their weak and woolly, little limbs
And nuzzle with each slim, expectant neck
Against their mother ewe, in search of food
To comfort them before nocturnal sleep
And, after they were satisfied and fed,
Their gentle bleating echoed up the slope.

But sheep-less are the hills and lost those days
When, in their thousands, flocks grazed on the moor;
No longer can the lambs repose and doze,
Since progress seems to soil and spoil and mar
And quad-bikes goad lank livestock to the farms
To automated feeding stations, stark
And cattle crowd the hills: more ugly forms
That chew the cud and steal each tender stalk.

Since Foot and Mouth has come and done its worst
To strip the sheep from moor and dale and fell
And now, as smog-bound sun sets in the west
And fume-polluted evening shadows fall,
The future for the greenery grows dim,
So, will the generations still to come
Be breathless at the view, all awed and dumb
By Craven’s green tranquillity and calm?

And will they mount the terraced hillside steep
And clamber keenly upwards to the crest
To drink the view, then rest awhile and stop
To see where massed millworkers earned a crust
To spin and weave fine fleeces from those fields?
For lost is weaving cotton, silk and flax
Or lambswool, white as snowflakes, from the folds,
Since mills lie still, in concord with the flocks.