The below poem is taken from Colin Falck’s final poetry collection, Leni’s Triumph, published by Shoestring Press shortly before his death in December at the age of 86. Copies are available to purchase online here. 

    Peace in East Sussex

These old joiners'-wood trees, beech and oak and ash,
have stood their ground here for centuries. Through weather-lore's "soak and splash"
they have survived the seasons and foretold each coming summer,
friends to St Swithin and to changing cloud-formations.
Through reforms and persecutions they have escaped all axe-
wielders, their forebears witness to dancing-plagues and mass hysterias.

This early-summer breeze, fresh from the invasion coast
of Viking, Dane and Norman, seems hesitant, deferential almost:
there have been houses here for a thousand years, and there are new ones still.
Can this be England - unburdened now, shorn of her empire,
gathering her strength here? - enduring, safe as of old,
not part of the Europe where wars have rolled.

There are seventeen names on this lichened memorial. Lives
go on, plan their futures, expire in these wistaria'd drives
and have turned their backs on history. It will be a peaceful evening.
No storm-troops will visit, no books be read, or burned; no cattle-trucks arrive.
The sun will go down behind these clouded hills as always. A butterfly flutters by.