A daily walk at dawn in London streets
And through secluded paths mid verdant fields
Where wild flowers grow and birds in choirs
Sing, and foxes alert to the intrusion
Stare, suspicious then distrustful run
In fear of the perfidy of Man.

Along our route a kerbside wilderness
Of grasses, shrubs and plants left to themselves
To grow untended save by sun and rain,
And in their midst, half-hidden from the main
An anemone with scarlet blooms
So rich in colour as to cause a sudden
Leaping of the heart, intake of breath,
Surely a joy to all who pass that way.

To all? One morn we find a gaping hole
Where that anemone had cast its rays
 Of faith and hope freely upon the world.
Someone had lifted it as if such treasure
Exists to furnish purely personal pleasure.

We felt, the two of us, a sense of loss
Mingled with grief and a strange despair
That our species might not be of mind
Nor spirit of generosity to share
The gifts that nature offers to mankind.

May 2020