This Land Is Real
Who walked here once
under oak and elm?
Those ancient trees,
their names not even whispered among these beeches’ leaves,
were the canopy, the roof,
the lid on lives played out in this land,
in this very place,
on this very sod of dirt.
Kings, warriors, great men
are remembered here in works of earth:
their names are forgotten.
Wives, mothers, real women
are immortal here in the toil that built those earthworks:
their toil is forgotten.
This land is real:
those that walked it, have become it.
Cambridgeshire, May 1992
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