Copper light on the brick wall Winters grip loosened from the air And we do as we've always done Plant out the seeds to last the year Curbside colours, front garden wonders Land sprawling wide or windowsill climbers Taking back what we can Of our common Our Common ground Fields yielding row after row of the same Bees dying with only the grain Hedgerow sanctuary smited by hands of a god Roused by money and wastelands Farmers dead in their droves Brought to the end by the patents and famines Born of the same bitter crop The hoarding of wealth from the common ground We are not enemies you and I What's mine is as yours as the sun is the skys It's from the earth that we know how to rise We are not enemies you and I What's mine is as yours as the sun is the skys It's from the earth that we know how to rise For our common ground Yes we depend on the trees and the soil The salt and the temperature of the ocean It's in all of our interests to grow and protect The common ground But we are pushed further and further away From what could centre and humble our days Autonomous connection, new life to old ways On the common ground We are not enemies you and I What's mine is as yours as the sun is the skys It's from the earth that we know how to rise We are not enemies you and I What's mine is as yours as the sun is the skys It's from the earth that we know how to rise For our common ground Forced into flats with no green grass for miles Development all around Forced into cities to live since industry Abandoned the town Forced from the fields and into the buildings Meaningless work claims the days Families forced into monoculture But they can't eat when the crops all fail We are not enemies you and I What's mine is as yours as the sun is the skys It's from the earth that we know how to rise We are not enemies you and I What's mine is as yours as the sun is the skys It's from the earth that we know how to rise For our common ground

The house it looks out over the sea Stone and mortar crumbled Burdock where the family would have been And we stand amidst it humbled The wave it took the houses of the town All on the peninsula It crushed and it roared and it dragged them down Now all that's left is the kelp, the birds The town I've known since the day I was born Was a place of seafarers But with each year comes a mighty storm It tears through the defenses I heard the news the other day It told of a future dismal The streets, the meadows the creatures and their ways Will soon be in the channel The people wade through the rivers that run In and out of their villages No place to stay and loved ones gone It's a long and treacherous road ahead As the waters rage all across the world The tide marks the movements Of those that bear the consequence Of damage that wasn't their doing The house it looks out over the sea Stone and mortar crumbled Burdock where the family would have been And we stand amidst it humbled The wave it took the houses of the town All on the peninsula It crushed and it roared and it dragged them down Now all that's left is the kelp, the birds

This ground stretches beneath our feet Roots vines capillaries Connected across fertile lands Across darkened waters Our breath filling and collapsing the space Between these bodies Ground so ancient yet we are so new Our journeys, scatterings of salt upon hills, on seas We write our lives in ink, in soil Old land scripture, old land scripture And as the rivers meet, and weave, and leave again So do we Vines of deep green caressing the bark Of the same tall tree And as the rivers meet and weave and leave again So do we Vines of deep green caressing the bark Of the same tall tree I wonder if you saw the moon tonight It's not yet full yet it flung its gaze Across rooftops, wet, as if it was It's always the same night sky we sleep beneath The same migrating winds that travel through our hair Stars that dance their last defeated dance And we look up from whatever Keeps us down here And as the rivers meet, and weave, and leave again So do we Vines of deep green caressing the bark Of the same tall tree And as the rivers meet and weave and leave again So do we Vines of deep green caressing the bark Of the same tall tree When you sleep may your body nurture you Reminded of the loves that burn across these lands for you So that you may find ease in your days Building strength for winter Wherever you may lay Wherever you may lay You may lay down your wandering bones And as the rivers meet, and weave, and leave again So do we Vines of deep green caressing the bark Of the same tall tree And as the rivers meet and weave and leave again So do we Vines of deep green caressing the bark Of the same tall tree

We're living in these times Where the signs are plastered on the signs Fermenting misery submerged within the brine Is it in our minds Sun shines, goes up, comes down like expected But on the ground it is hectic The balance is wrecked as has been for millennia It's what the old ones have been telling you They felt the earth shudder in a fever As it was carved out and plundered Just so some could get ahead So we respond to these letters on our doorstep Masks up, hands washed, stockpile, store dread But on the road leading out of town the ground's dead Churned up and developed Now where does the fox lay its little head Is it lost on our intuition Or is it the mangled green rot of this condition How can we listen No ear to the earth, eyes to the sky Heart to the wild It's just a place of imagination Too far out of reach for our aching hands Maybe a burden on our budding plans What was there before the tar sands And plantations Do we remember the soul of our lands They can barely leave the food on the shelves Consider the hand to mouth of someone else Let alone think about our kin of the soil or the trees or the ice shelf Fear is the mallet that splits the wood Desperation's the wedge Capitalism, the fatal blow to our heads our hearts Scrambling round on hands and knees Collecting shards of glass Thrown as an offering, a pittance A ridicule of bread and puppetry The bank is the god, it is the carrot On the stick of misery Lessons in separation The haves the have not The responsibly distant The suicidal can not First time thinkers with a judgement raining down Like thunder Strike the people when it's the profit that tears us all asunder We've never seen anything like this before Or have we It's in the water, in the air, Thick with tension, muggy Under every blank stare Turned over in the milling of days Catastrophe churns the waking hours Of so many already But today it's not just the poor wringing hands And so there's plans and handouts And rising welfare standards It goes to show it's all a fix Before now after There's no trust in a time like this Immediacy's an addiction Woven into our minds by isolation Dependent on the truck leaving the depot Set to the clock, and the traffic and the coming of snow But disaster knows no borders We lack the immunity of order And not order like the state Or the heavies banging down our doors But the kind that restores and supports us The kind we'd get if we were held by our elders Held by the fire or by example Someone to say Time is a rippling of everything that ever was and ever will be It doesn't get left behind And we'd find out how old we really are We're living in these binds Where the signs are peeling off the signs And there's planning permission until the end of time Buckle up, hold tight, both hands gripping the wheel But the car's driving on AI So we just let it drive

I'm tired and I want to sleep For longer than the nights grant me I'm tired and I want to sleep For longer than the days sneak up upon me Heavy eyes Heavy bones Heavy eyes Heavy bones I imagine my body as a boat In a wind that whips and tosses me to the deep I imagine my body as a boat In a storm that rips the sails And steals the wood from under my feet Heavy eyes Heavy bones Heavy eyes Heavy bones

You grant me your fingers Bones of your body As gifts from the rocks of the earth Seabed as the maker The crafter the shaper Turned light into salt Into shoes on my hearth We're older than we can ever know The last time I cried with you I couldn't conceive of time with you But time is a trick of the gods They maneuver through the Broken and battered debris that is scattered And laugh at the idea that time might be lost We're older than we could ever know These fears that are founded in human convention The warp of the mind like the bark of the pine Digging in heels as the current does what you need it to the most But will you let it Cause the riverbank erodes It wasn't meant to last forever Let the water take you, let the water take you As it has always done Let the water take you, let the water take you As it has always done Fluctuations between acceptance of loss And a terror that pinches my nerves Pretending in my head I'm at where I'm at and that's it I've made my learning curve But I'd be lying to myself If I Imagined it all to be true These fears that are founded in human convention The warp of the mind like the bark of the pine Digging in heels as the current does what you need it to the most But will you let it Cause the riverbank erodes It wasn't meant to last forever Let the water take you, let the water take you As it has always done Let the water take you, let the water take you As it has always done We sit at this table And the sky it releases its' bitter cold onto the world Clocks stop and I relax into The folds of the evening Your heater your heart and its' glow And I know there is no knowing I hold grief in the back of my mind And I wish I could see it like you do But it's going to take me some time These fears that are founded in human convention The warp of the mind like the bark of the pine Digging in heels as the current does what you need it to the most But will you let it Cause the riverbank erodes It wasn't meant to last forever Let the water take you, let the water take you As it has always done Let the water take you, let the water take you As it has always done

The silence held like a sharp drawing of breath The very fabric of existence frozen In half a minute of gripping uncertainty Painful the awareness of rarity Ears pricked as a hares' to detect a betrayal A whisper that might slice through the Vast nothingness, vast fullness, vast fullness No movement , no need for it Only waiting I breathe in, I breathe out The chill is piercing And the silence awakens my senses once more I thought I'd lost this moment I thought I was too late I don't remember time like this ever I don't remember silence ever And then the car comes It's fierce engine roars in the distance And then the people down the end of the road They are laughing But I'm not laughing with them Broken bodies fill the air Forgotten times of stillness At the bottom of this hill Where I grew up but never heard a silence And we'll go on, never hearing silence anymore

Your body will not be your own A shell of flesh a winter harbour Their boats are left with you to rust To rot away Your hands are tied to the fences stuck between moons You twist and turn but you can't see over your shoulder The night comes in fast and you don't know if you'll last To see the morning And the suns' gesture of forgiveness Cause you know the sun is full of forgiveness And this cradle within you was never meant for them And their pious little minds That were never loved enough What a nest you could have made If it was yours to find the branches for But it's not yours as long as it's theirs We bind our scents to the skin of each other Frost can only become water with the heat of our breath So we breathe and we breathe And we give and receive Like the mothers and aunts and friends that died Doing their best What a fear it was to see the torches in the children's eyes Now what a sorrow to bear a child out of fear And what of the person that you were and are And might eventually become Are you still here If only seconds could be swept up in the dust Then we would sweep, we would clean it all up And this cradle within you was never meant for them And their pious little minds That were never loved enough What a nest you could have made If it was yours to find the branches for But it's not yours as long as it's theirs And if my hands can give anything Let it be a ball of light to bring Some clarity to those pathways in the dark And if my loved ones can do anything It's the power that they hold within That weaves these herbs and strength Around the bark These old stories are our grounding It's within this knowledge is where we are found Resting our bones among the pages thick with age Under the blankets of their gardens Of the hedges the woods and the mountains We are students in survival everyday For the ones who died in quiet For the sake of an unborn life For the ones who took a chance With shaking hands We must keep on with our fingers In the spirit of every witch that Has followed their sense and their knowing Even in the face of death What if we lose this, if we forget it What chances to grasp at last threads that Are holding us together like a patchwork quilt If there is nothing but a book and a wondering A story that in dark times can bring Some light then let's use these hands like water Healing