Dartmoor is one of our protected National Parks Moorland rivered and bogged whose upper lands are granite tor caps that cut a swathe through its natural beauty with their rock strewn age erosions pieces spread shrapnel like across their verdant slopes.
How you survived mans endless gnawing at your edges or his invasive paths through your lands is a wonder
His left hand-marks are his many dwelling places within your confines Buckfastleigh, Moretonhampstead, Princetown, Yelverton and her airstrips, Horrabridge, South Brent, Christow and Chagford, mans greed taking lands were he wants leaving his tooled features on your God given face,
He has destroyed many of your natural beauties for his wiles and desires face changing what you should be.
A cry goes out, you shroud yourself in your misty white cover fraying edges of these man made shames, momentarily blending truth with mystery as your ageless body rebels, light only illumining the none reality your shroud creates,
The wind parts your shroud and the harsh reality of mans being glares forth again, his fences and roads corrupting your rugged natural beauty that should have been yet is no more, the wind drops and we are lost again as the shroud mist covering once more blears edges of the offending sights, contented for now as your wet misty air soaks my lungs with your countryside taste,
Sadness clouds my brain, was it here on these lands that I felt the freedom of life's uncomplicated spell, here I climbed into a black plastic survival bag to share my body heat with one who had underestimated your wildness and unpredictability, here were I flew kites and tobogganed with my children, here were you made my life for a while bearable and wondrous.
I owe you and I am sad I was the interloper you opened your arms to ,me I learned that you are nature you are freedom and you are beauty, we have share so much,
My son may well have been conceived on your land one summer's day when for once I was as wild and carefree as you are and your appetite for life filled me then, let us save you and cherish you as there will always be love for your wildness and beauty let them be our incentive to leave you now as you are.
