Brock Sets Home WE all live in a mellow subtarine Sun shines in when we leave for the latrine We play like kids in the fields so green We are your badgers and at night unseen.

Dad digs up into the hill as downwards fails So mum behind him doesn't break her nails As the earth tumbles down past their tails We cubs scrabble about for the worms and snails.

Sometimes at night in single files Dad up front we can go for miles Threading our way past hedges and stiles Then home again, what do we know of your trials?

We have striped faces is that reason to persecute?

We are not commandos with parachutes Why take up guns and have mass shoots?

Not all the farmers are in cahoots.

Some want fields of the happy and free In Azerbaijan we are a cure for TB Killing and burning us, just jerks someone's knee What are you doing about destiny?

Will you hear our cries when mum and dad are dead?

And we don't know how we're supposed to be fed Is this some way for little ones to be led?

Left underground, snuggled together, dying in our bed.

Some folks are kind and on our side Putting out corn cobs, giving us places to hide Have we not earned the right countrywide?

To still be a part of the English countryside.

Jane Gadd Cainscross