Those Fields
Author: Martin Power

Those Fields
Author: Martin Power

Where I live now was once a field,
Three fields away from where I grew up,
And those fields to myself and my childhood friends
Held a world of adventure for us.

Those fields would be planted with barley,
With beet , and turnips and hay,
And it's there we played and we hunted
And spent many a memorable day.

We'd search the hedges for birds' nests,
Make camps out hay and of straw,
And we'd forage in Autumn for berries,
Crabapples, for nuts and the sloe.

With our faithful dogs we'd go ratting
In the beet fields and hedges all day,
And still to this day with fondness I recall
The dogs from my childhood days.

We'd set snares in the evenings for rabbits,
In the mornings we'd go check our lines,
And in the winter we'd go trapping finches
With our calling bird, cage and our lime.

In those fields we learned about Nature,
We grew up with respect for the land;
They were such a big part of our life back then
As I grew from boy into man.

Now, those fields are planted with houses,
With garages, hotels and with stores;
There's a road running right through the middle
On which cars and lorries now roll.

That life has changed is unquestioned
And I'm not sure that's good or it's bad,
But, given the choice to grow up now or then,
I'd rather the childhood I had.

The poem is a nostalgic memory of childhood activity in land now urbanised and modernised.