The Field Poem by Pete Crowther

John Carmichael is dead,
he was a lovely man,
he used to yodel and he sang,
played cricket, liked a drink,
and always laughter, smiles
lurked in his sea-blue eyes.
He loved this field with its tall ash trees,
its pond and its hawthorn hedge
that blossoms white in banks of snow
each lovely May. He counted butterflies
and watched as deer came shyly to the pond
lightly stepping like nervous girls
through the far gap in the hedge.
He felt the thrill that we feel too
when the pale barn owl hunts low
above the sedges where the rushes grow.

This was his field as it’s ours now;
like him we take delight in all the life
that here dwells in rich abundance,
the nesting birds, the moles, the voles,
the hare, the fox, the weasels and the rabbits,
the autumn fungi and the flowering plants,
the sticklebacks, the newts, the moths,
the bees, the butterflies and dragonflies
are our delight, and for a little time
we say we own this field as John did,
and all those others down the years,
who here ploughed and mowed and tended sheep.

This field has been unchanged for centuries.
We know from early maps
it was the same three-cornered field
of just two acres, give or take, so think
of all those owners who would say,
if asked, “This is my field” but that’s untrue,
we do not own, we simply keep
it in our care a little while then hand it on.
The field itself remains, and works
its annual miracle: each spring
all life renews itself, it all begins again,
afresh, new buds, new growth, new nests,
spring flowers, bees, butterflies, they come
year on year the same. Like us
they live their lives as fully as they can
and then pass on — the field remains.