"In Our Hands"

This is a place for the senses,
here, under a shared and wild sky
in a spread of hills and light
layered with the conversations
of wind and birds and water's fall.

This is a place for the senses:
land beneath your feet,
moss and bog and rock,
fresh fell-air, the weather in your face.

Let me take you on a journey:
through a raven's eyes, look on a world
where hills are solid waves
and lakes spread, ink-dark
mirrors to the clouds.

Come in close: the first leaf of spring,
a butterfly, or a bee
busy among meadow flowers
that turn to face the sun.

Moments of wonder:
lichen dressing oaks in grey,
dawn mist carpeting a wood,
an arc of colour after rain.

In fells and valleys
shaped by ice, water, time,
our own centuries are counted
in the endless march of hand-made walls,
in coppiced woods and hefted flocks,
in the quickening of hearts
and the naming of things:
mere, ghyll, pike, force,
crag, thwaite, tarn.

Textured land, common land,
held by years of care and toil,
a history of standing up, mountain-strong,
for farms of the fells, tarns of the fells, flora of the fells,
and dedication, to continue to ask:
Are we on the right road?

In this fragile place,
a woodland or a lake
knows nothing of uncertainty,
of shifting climate, or politics, or money;
nor does it know the certainty of love,
how the will to protect what matters
can outlast a raging storm.

This is a place of land and lives interwoven,
memory and hope, light and shade.
It feels timeless but time ticks on,
and the future's in our hands.

This is a place for imagining,
for treading softly,
for shaping and sharing
what happens next.