WHAT IF?

What if it were to be decreed
by our all powerful Mother of Parliaments no less
that the Exe Estuary should become an Area of Outstanding Wildness
with not a dwelling within a mile of the tideline,
the distance to be carefully measured by government officials,
and all the people, simple and gentle, to be humanely removed,
as,  I am told, happened in the South Hams in World War Two,
and the buildings,  the beautiful with the tatty,  to be pulled down stone by stone and brick by brick
and the railways to be broken and all those rails and sleepers dragged away
and the cycle paths to be taken elsewhere and recycled
and all things plastic, concrete, tarmacadamed to be hunted down and rubbished
and stiff penalties to be strictly imposed on trespass,
especially on anyone who introduced any kind of electrical device or petrol engine
with death by hanging to be the fate of any one found sneaking in and driving an offroad vehicle
or carrying a shotgun
and the tides to be left to fight back into the ancient inlets
and the birds and the beasts to be given dominion
and the flora be given permission to flourish
and only a very few privileged people, but not their dogs,
of whom I would be one and, okay, you can be one too,
would have all the fun of walking and boating about here?

Well, I only ask what if?