The different shades of green,
Sitting before me like an artist’s palette,
With different blues above,
A reminder of what we risk losing,
With business as usual,
Far horizons and the space
To think, to feel, to recharge.
The light on the western horizon,
A steady beacon of hope,
And all the familiar outlines of hills,
Standing like long awaited friends,
With the distant family of hills standing guard,
As if over some wonderful secret,
Yet somehow beckoning you to come on, ever on.
While the Cheviot sits on the distant horizon,
A beautiful green, beached whale.
The breeze whispers tale of long ago
And the people who lived here
In a land that was never empty
And nothing was quite as it seemed.
The silver rivers head for Solway or North Sea
Singing their own ballads,
While the curlew high above sings
Its own sad, gentle lament.
This is a border of songs and pipe tunes
Of shepherds and townsfolk,
A border that can bring us together,
Rather than divide.
Peter Sagar
