1.
Home is where the heart is
Said the scarecrow to the crow
Home is where the heart is
And that’s all I really know.
This field is mine for all this day
I’ve watched the kids who’ve come to play
I love it here and want to stay
But Farmer Joe is not the kind of bloke
Who listens to what scarecrows say.
Today I’m in this field of wheat
And I can see, just past the street,
The cliff top edge.
And farther still, beyond the hill,
I can see old Portland Bill.
On nights like this when I cannot sleep
He winks at me in a code not Morse.
I rack my brains and beat my chest
And give the task more than my best.
I don’t have much time, you see
‘Cause come the dawn
His light goes out
And I can no longer see
What he might be telling me.
With light so bright he must be wise
His meaning clear to one who tries.
But I’m so dumb I cannot see
What he surely must be telling me.
This night might well be my last
Chance to crack the code
Cos come the dawn
I might be back to that fieldd of corn
Where the lights I see
Never seem to wink at me.
Where the children never come to play
And I cannot even see the sea.
2
You moan all night and you moan all day.
You don’t even listen when I squawk at you.
You see the sea but you don’t hear it roar
As it beats upon the shore.
And erodes the cliff beneath your feet
When you are in that field of wheat.
You envy me as I fly around
While you are stuck upon the ground.
You can see I love to roam
And do not pine for a place called home.
When I was young
I loved the nest
But now I know it was for the best
When I was thrown out into the sky.
I did not know that I could fly
Until I had to fly or die.
You moan your lot but it’s all you’ve got
You cannot be what you are not.
So the farmer pushes you around
Shifting your spot upon the ground.
What’s wrong with that you bunch of twigs?
Us crows have much more to fear.
Cos if Joe decides you no longer scare
He’ll get his gun and shoot us down.
So rattle your cans for all you’re worth
Be the best scarecrow on all the earth.
Home is where the heart is
And that is all I know
And that’s why it does not matter
To which field you have to go.
(I wrote this poem on a night I could not sleep because I was trying to compose an article about the extraordinary scenes as depositors withdrew eight billion pounds from the Northern Rock Building Society. I wanted to attack the over dependence of the British economy on ever rising house prices. It is not only Northern Rock who fuels this boom. The giant in the housing market, the Bank of Scotland, which owns the Halifax Building Society as well as many other companies, is just as guilty of encouraging people to take mortgages beyond their means, in order that they can buy the house of their dreams.
While I was thinking about what the angle should be I was aware of the paradox that I had spent much of the past year in buying the house of my dreams. And I was enjoying it hugely and felt very reluctant to go back to London the next day. When I read the poem as the dawn broke, it did not seem quite right so I stuffed it into a drawer.
Tonight I could not sleep. I was thinking that because of all the time I have been spending trying to make the Dorset house into my version of the Ideal Home I have not written about the current state of British politics. I had planned a long time ago to go the Trade Union Congress in Brigthton and the Labour Party Conference in Bournemouth, both an easy trip for me. The Sunday newspapers were full of the seemingly hopeless task faced by David Cameron as he travels up to Blackpool for the Conservative Conference. Cameron is not only being trounced in the opinion polls he is being deserted by many of the party faithful. Margaret Thatcher has spent two hours in Downing Street having a heart to heart chat with Gordon Brown and Norman Tebbitt, who bonded on that night in 1984 when the IRA bomb rocked the Grand Hotel in Brighton, where Thatcher and Tebbit were staying.
The bomb went off at 2.59 AM when, as Thatcher told the nation the following morning, ‘Denis was asleep but I was working on one more government paper.’ If Thatcher could manage on four hour’s sleep a night what was I doing lying in bed trying to get to sleep?
Surely I am not such a wimp? So I jumped out of bed and ran down stairs seeing the arch showman of another Blackpool conference, Quinton Hogg, ringing a school bell and proclaiming,
‘Do not ask for whom the bell tolls
It tolls for thee.’
By the time I had made a cup of tea, I still had no clear idea as to what message I was going to deliver to David Cameron. So I opened my drawer and re-read the poem. It did not seem so bad, and I saw a way of making it a bit better by modifying one stanza, and cutting out two other stanzas.
If I have time later today after struggling once more to get the kitchen cabinet up I may write a serious political blog.)