The Brexit Sparrows

You don’t see many hedges these days, and the hedges

you do see they’re not that thorny, it’s a shame,

and when I say a hedge I’m not talking about

a row of twigs between two lines of rusty barbed wire,

or more likely just a big prairie

where there were whole cities of hedges

not fifty years ago,

a big desert more like,

and I mean thick hedges,

with trees nearby for a bit of shade

and a field not a road not too far off

so you can nip out for an insect or two

when you or the youngsters feel like a snack,

a whole hedgerow system,

as it says in the book,

and seven out of ten sparrows say the same,

and that’s an underestimate,

we want a place you can feel safe in again,

we’re social animals, we want our social life back,

and the sooner the better,

because in a good hedge you can always talk things over,

make decisions, have a laugh if you want to,

sing, even with a voice like mine!

-——–

The poem “Hedge Sparrows”, as collected in Richard Price’s Lucky Day (2005). The poems collected in Lucky Day reflect upon the disability of Price’s daughter, who has Angelman syndrome.