'All the day it was you and I, tan and cream, and no-one was to know our nights were us and we.
Havens of starry delight.
But, someone knew, saw us lovebirds cooing and, being in jealousy bound hate, thought only to tell the lawful criminals, despoilers with perverted sanctity.
Their lashings came to our tunnels of toil, our meadows of bliss.
We, who thought ourselves invisible as ptarmigans in wintered corries discovered ourselves revealed by mischievous magpies, exposed by unkind ravens, conspired against by crows.
Now where do we rest? No, not we, not us, but you and I, deprived our loving nest. Your cage, the place they took you, must be far away from mine, in a country unseen by my eyes, beyond the gap over which our song can ring, and my heart is a tragedy of sorrow and pining.'
Poem by stuartcturnbull, picture from Tim Hill on Pixabay
This poem is one written over the summer. It is part of a suite of poems that considers UK history and life from roughly the end of the Second World War through to an unknown future.
It starts with love, and strictures which may not have been applied legally, but culturally, and for some British communities still exists.
The suite's title is from the opening line of the fourth stanza in William Blake's 1808 poem Jerusalem.