Sonnet: Lost Tradition

White-clad cottages, stand like dominoes

Each one integral, each one unique

The land they stand on archaic, antique

Their owners tend to the cattle who low,

 

In the communal fields shared down below

The seeds of grass, stolen by a crow’s beak

Returning to a nest over a creek,

Does little to the fields. The grass will grow.

 

Long may the cattle continue to graze,

In the fields tended by man may they remain.

There comes a time when we must change our ways,

Or admit that we find ourselves in pain.

 

The old ways were the best ways. My high praise,

For lost tradition, is never the same.