Dreaming, I saw a thistle field, in half light;
\nIt teemed with folk.<\/p>\n
Some, their loyalties
\nelsewhere, took shelter from a threatened gale.
\nThey planned new batteries of defensive acts,
\nto keep their rule.<\/p>\n
At their flank, a cringe
\nof crawling servants let the surplus value
\nof our better lands get stripped.<\/p>\n
There were some, counting their blessings
\nand their savings, safely banked,
\nwho loudly chorused, All is well.<\/p>\n
They turned their backs
\non those, their neighbours, a greater number,
\nwho were beggared, beaten, ill.<\/p>\n
Of these,
\nthe most despairing, their shivering souls and bodies
\nwrecked, looked for exile through the portal
\nof a needle\u2019s point or a bottle\u2019s neck.<\/p>\n
In among this dream\u2019s parade,
\nfrom every quarter of the field,
\na quiet movement gathered pace.
\nLooking for a wider view, a growing disparate band \u2013
\nI joined them soon \u2013 made progress
\nuphill to an open gate.<\/p>\n
\u201cHistory is the only real teacher \u2026<\/p>\n
David Betteridge is one of forty poets contributing to Scotia Nova. Poems for the early days of a better nation<\/cite> edited by Alistair Findlay & Tessa Ransford, Luath Press, Ltd, Edinburgh, 2014. He has written a number of books of poetry and edited A Rose Loupt Oot: Poetry and Song Celebrating the UCS Work-in<\/cite> (Smokestack Books,2011)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dreaming, I saw a thistle field, in half light; It teemed with folk. Some, their loyalties elsewhere, took shelter from a threatened gale. They planned new batteries of defensive acts, to keep their rule. At their flank, a cringe of crawling servants let the surplus value of our better lands get stripped. There were some,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,4396],"tags":[3495],"class_list":["post-9469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emancipation-liberation","category-issue-23","tag-author-david-betteridge"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"views":2929,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9469"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9470,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9469\/revisions\/9470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}