From Small Acorns Mighty Oak Trees Grow
(Description: acorns, health & fitness brochure)
There, amongst the trees, the Leisure Centre
providing for the unity of mind and body
mantras from East and West
yoga, pilates, bums and tums, zumba.
Pay your subscription, choose a package
Commuter, Family, Premier, Corporate
invigorate your heartbeat, lower your cholesterol.
What would our ancestors say, should they return
to this fast-paced world, this leisure
our modern comforts – bus rides, movies, cafes, pubs
so far removed from the exercise of a working life
dawn to dusk weeding, hoeing, coppicing
digging, planting, washing, scrubbing, chopping
building fences, mixing wattle, daub
digging trenches, making charcoal, hunting
the long treks from Lordswood
to Chatham on foot, with geese or sheep, or pigs
by bicycle, by horse and cart, by charabanc
in wind or rain or snow uphill and down?
Imagine this – oak trees falling, a working woodland
cleared for concrete, steel, suntans, saunas…
but needing still the power of names
the spirit of kestrels invoked, our bodies wild and pumping
soaring .