Caravans

The genial squatters come,
a cavalcade of beige, pitching up
beside thickening woods.

Local girls walk their dogs,
hoping for a soft-haired Prince
and a week of flirting at the gates.

Ignition keys removed, these people
want the noises trees can offer:
each natural stir lost to them

in urban lives. They eat outdoors,
adjust to cold, walk for miles,
flora sticking to their muddy boots.

Then there’s night: the family
hunched inside, each van
a lit snail, stuck to dewy grass.