After The Fallow

By: 

Justin

Coombes

In this poem, I brought together three inspirations: the thought of all our soon to be re-tapped potential as we emerge from lockdown, Epping Forest and its neighbouring areas of farmland (the soil cultivated for centuries), and William Morris's dictum, "Fellowship is Life", which appears on Waltham Forest's coat of arms.

Almost together, looking ahead,
let us imagine very old maps:
each one plotted with green-gold squares,
and let us picture, perhaps,
each of us now a fallow field,
and our rich, idle soils sleeps and slips,
in-between seasons, awaiting seeds:
the arrival of crops’ fellowship!

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Our Members are champions of literature. Their support makes our engagement work in schools and prisons possible and they enable us to celebrate literature in all its wonderful diversity. As a thank you, we give them all the joys of a literary festival and book club rolled into one, all year round.