Sterile, devoid of life, except for
The cloven hoof of passing deer.
Sentinel led, deep green fronded
Constrained with no space for light.
Multiple eruptions on the far reaching
Landscape of wild Scotland; invaders
In the native home of the Scots Pine
Where Red Squirrels and Crossbills
Habituate endemic in ecological balance.
A balance we are endeavouring to restore
When once the only the choice we had
Was to plant swathes of Sitka Spruce.
Regimented; standing to attention, like
Battalions of men who fought for justice,
In foreign fields; the needs of which to serve,
And restock; stripped the land of the North
Into a mass representation of no-man’s land.
Tree stumps and severed limbs. Nerves; as
Brittle as snapping twigs. Trampled Flora,
As the trenches filled with slime and mud.
Now (as agriculture reclaims the battlefields)
In their broadleaf woodland; bending with the
driven wind; young saplings, thrive alongside
Toughening bark of their slow maturing cousins
And whilst Wildcats skulk and hunt in the shadows
Our young men are still being felled in Foreign Fields