the song of ryebank fields

The Song of Ryebank Fields

By Ali Davenport

 

It’s a small plot

in the scheme of things.

Unremarkable on old maps;

unnamed. Ordinary history;

field, claypit, recreational ground,

then left for nature to reclaim.

​

Ryebank Fields.

​

Shadowed by city towers;

new born, gleaming wealth.

Cranes pointing arms to sky,

proclaiming growth.

This is prosperity, they cry.

Raze that shabby scrub.

​

What counts is how things look.

Wildness tamed, nature contained 

in municipal squares.

What serves is how things seem.

Fake grass preferred.

Developers dipping plans in green;

washing them through

to rinse out the heart.

​

*

​

The city chokes

under brick; reaches, dazed;

tries to remember a time

when it breathed

before mill & factory,

before its forging

as an altar to industry;

its story of souls yoked in smoke.

​

The memory of soil jolts its bones.

​

*

​

It starts here. This scruffy grass.

​

Lay down your hands.

​

Listen

to the Aspen Grove;

one tree, all clones. Baby to Pando

but see its shape, a shield

like its name in Greek.

It has diamonds on its bark.

​

Look, The Fairy Tree!

Magical hawthorn,

rooted in folklore;

spinning a glittery yarn or three.

Can you see the glimmering?

​

The flickering in the brambles?

Those tangles hide gems;

small birds

seeking treasure in the brush,

a bounty of insects in the mud,

unfurling worms

in this flood-absorbing ground.

Old willow’s mossy limbs

divine the gift.

​

You too can mine this land;

tap the acorn trove

& tell a tale of potential.

​

These fields hold so much.

​

Give to their embrace. Look up,

where crows cross wide

above the Nico Ditch.

There’s history in this place.

​

This earth.

​

Breathe

​

this blessing of being

away from rooves.

​

Remember how it was.

​

*

​

It starts here.

Each patch in the city round

from north to south: verges left,

lawns mown less, weeds

welcomed in the beds.

It’s not the look that counts,

​

it’s the wilder-ness

​

& the tending,

oh, the tending,

not with manufactured love

but the care of re-connected hands

feeling their way

through leaf & stem

through root

unearthing ancient hymns

awakening the quickening

the rush

through every road & street

a honey kiss

from north to south

the city round

lit up

with hum

the shimmering hive

the Manchester Bee reborn

in new abundance

​

& where Manchester leads,

the Chorus re-sounds

​

*

​

& when we’re done

- & that time will come -

when nature reclaims the land,

cracks the city's concrete

into crumbs,

​

when we’re long gone,

​

what song will Ryebank Fields sing?

It was a small plot

in the scheme of things

​

but worth a city,

worth the world,

​

these fields of gold

that shone

               & shone

                           & shone