I don’t know if it’s because she doesn’t enjoy my choice of poetry or just because she is a big fan of Wiltshire, but a few months after I started writing these articles a friend gave me a book called “A celebration of Wiltshire in poetry” by Amanda Hampson. How fitting for these articles! Having gained kind permission from the publisher (www.hobnobpress.co.uk) to reproduce them for our website I shall occasionally feature them here. Amanda’s book is available in all the usual places!
Sentinel
Valleys scored by ancient droves,
brooding hills crowned with thickets and groves.
The wintry lattice clawing a pink sky,
rooks circling nests with a plaintive cry,
These ancient glades, sentinels of pasture,
guardians of downland, a natural arbour.
Their windward shoulders, denuded and bent,
clinging to landscapes of feudal descent.
The wind gathers her cloak and bustles through,
the Vale burst with life and the chalkhill blue.
The lichened copse sets out her green stall,
burgeoning trees flutter in a leafy shawl.
Meadows sway with buttercup and daisy,
larks ascend to blueness made hazy.
Rivulets run clear, laughing under bridges,
hare and badger gouge the ditches,
The spinney in its fullness, keeper of the Vale,
a haven for wildlife under its veil.
The canopy mosaics against the starburst sun,
farmers amble home when the day is done.
- Submitted by Gill Gibson-Piggot, Chair WFWI