Each Field Poem by Jimmy O'Connell

Each field could tell its own story
had we but the ear to give it understanding
or time to stand on each overgrown headland,
observing each season since centuries began.

Picture this then, and come to a conclusion:
A field you passed by many years ago, noticed
and then noticed again years later. Now ask:
Does it remember you, and the you in succession?

Even fields blanketed in housing estates -
ones you stood in as a child before now
watching a tractor with plough pulled behind it -
breathes a story the houses can’t know.