On Crayford Marshes

Amid the marshes tall pylons stand
           in fields where sheep graze :
adjacent to these pastures
           a field filled with giant bulrushes
more than you could hope to count
           The risk of flooding
has saved the land
           from development

Here is home
           to black-tailed godwit
to snipe and teal and dunlin
           to little grebe and redshanks
to lapwings and herons
           here too proud kingfishers
have established their domain
           and on the banks
of the channels and gulleys
           water voles abound

John Lyons