Maureen Sutton: The Lincolnshire Poet Laureate Award for 2015.

Recently, one of our leading members has gained the Lincolnshire Poet Laureate award. Her winning entry is below. 

Congratulations to Maureen Sutton:

        Shaped by Sound

       The sod beneath my feet has absorbed
       the plough-man’s tread; boots softened
       by creak and bend, one leg always higher.
       His clicking tongue called commands:
      ‘Whoa, turn’, furrows run deep in fenlands.
       The weight of horses’ shoes indented clay.
       Harrow and plough have cut through earth
       sparked limestone.  Ridge and furrow
       have written their own psalms.

       Bird-song: crow, cuckoo, peewit, sky-lark,
       each composed a chorus for sunrise
       ceaselessly calling through changing seasons.
       Invisible winds, breezes, storms, howling gales
       lifted and shifted top-soil, sculptured willow,
       hawthorn, hedges, oak, and ash to a sacred grove
       defining enclosure, boundaries, ‘right of way.’

        Ancient towers and steeples have absorbed 
        the prayers of my ancestors. I hear them in my  
        mind’s ear, clear as village church bells.
        Dykes and ditches diverted water-courses, pushed
        back the sea, reclaimed the land where green 
        mists still rise.  All flow with their own rhythm 
        like migrant geese leaving and returning.
        This is my county. This is Lincolnshire.

Maureen Sutton

March 2015