NORTHUMBRIAN WASTES
Over Bewcastle Fells
Weary with Romans
Weary with moss troopers
Blood bespattered history
Lies Langholm's muckle toon
Was it afraid of the SNP?
And not much regarded
By a mother unimpressed with Telford
Hexham and Brampton's
Much regarded Englishness
Found by Pevsner and Clifton-Taylor
Is syphoned into Surreyness in the north
Much regards -
Relative terms of approbation
in the numbers game
The space of just a few miles moor
Moor that is emptier than many a moor
Kept empty for the Harriers and radar beams
A narrow winding road
Directs the cognoscenti
To Bewcastle's Saxon gem
Alone with the cattle
Is the stump of a civilisation's colour
Kept company by the graves
Planted upon a Roman urge
To manage these peoples
Supplanted by a universal urge
To fight, defend and scare
Now all three live
Quiet together
Destination of the Italian
The New Zealander
The lady from Gloucester
Is Bewcastle a testimony
to national dread
Or a sign of quiet hope?

If God's will be done
Nation will not make war on Nation any more
The Land is for Faith
These wastes are fertile
Fertile in conflict
Fertile in inspiration
Think on the neighbouring lands
that Hugh MacDiarmid and
Wystan Auden both loved.