Earth Song - for Jill

Jill Eastland has an exhibition called "Our Land Our Lives" at The Six Bells in Covent Garden, Cambridge, 1-31 May. It's a series of statements inspired by and dedicated to the struggle of the Roma and other Traveller folk at Dale Farm and those who tried to defend them against their eviction. She asked me to perform at her opening private view tonight (along with the magnificent talents of host Johnny Marvel, poet Keely Mills, singer-songwriter Faith Taylor, and musician-sham David Crowbar) and I was inspired by her work (the titles of some of which turn up in the piece) to write the following tonight:

We are here.
On common land we stand
Entwined
Root and branch
Arc us earth to sky
And we fly - leaf-twist
On the good wind
Diving swift as hawk-stoop
To burrow underground.
We are rabbit-thump rumour,
The liquid trickle
Of brook-mimicking birdsong,
Soft and strong as running water.

And you cannot stop us,
Cannot choke the love
That is our breath.
We will erode you, drop by drop,
Weed-crack your concrete,
Rust you and reclaim you.
Entwined, eternal -
Root and branch, bird and rain -
We stand. Common land.
Forever.