the last of the commoners

the last of the commoners

the new forest let you in

around 1650

let you begin

birthing calf-life

into the mossy dawn

pannage pigs

snouting the loam

your blood greened

and mighty

from the first yawn

of your first home

glowing the embers

of rights of common

in times blowing too modern

to offer respect due

your warm ham hands

and corded estovers

are unstoppable

down to -25 blue

you roam knowing

the winds by name

breathing the land secrets

unbuckling the canopied sky

tender guardian of tender years

what of your rights

when your breath

has become new leaves?

when the baked bricks

yield to the earth

once your bones bend?

what of these custodians

of the great and green and true

if our hysterical greed

and frenzied grasping

suffocates the earth

and suffocates you?