The South Downs, Ted Walter

Long before names, before we thought of naming,
seas roared through, dividing Sussex Downs
from what is France: carving through millennia
of laid down life – this chalk, these flints, the land
we came to know as home. Long before that
the cosmos dreamed of consciousness, filled space
with elements that one day would lead to us.

Now every grain of soil, each artefact,
the air we breathe, the sweep of shadowed grass,
directly links us to our common birth,
and every crafted work, each photograph,
each stone we gather from a storm-washed beach,
points always back, reminds us of the time
it took to get here, step by step.