I placed a stone
21st July 2014
I placed a stone
High up on the Downs
Where the larks carol to an east.
That rises over green
Folded hills of broken time.
Where the towers of winds
Blow the madrigals call
Across green meadows
That fill the space between.
And the marjoram, basil
Bedstraw, medick and thyme
Cling to hills, dissolved
Perched against the verdant plain.
Here, lost above the accusing
Poppies that proclaim propriety to
Ground turned over, broken.
Deep chalky, treads, ruts.
Heralding the wind
They shake like barley.
Foreboding and filled
Blood red as memory.
It now sits, crouched against the
Shivering, vulnerable bark
Of a grey hawthorn
Smelling the white of death.
And old as the hard Earth
And in the earth
Plucked from Cornish shores
Where waves crash on rocks
Serpentine, red, worn.
Curled around eternal life.
Holding in magma, a past -
A gateway between worlds
Now points to the west
That disappears, as each league
Rolls, wavers, meanders. To
Where the sun increasingly falls.
A rock, as hard as
Life itself, rounded
Shamed, beaten, rolled
With gleam and shimmer
Light reflecting, holding
All the past that eroded
Pulled apart and polished
This hand filled rock.
And what of any observer?
Who stumbles upon this chalk-land place?
High, above that vale?
They will wonder why
They will ask....
"This is a stone that should not be there!?"
High up on the Downs
Where the larks carol to an east.
That rises over green
Folded hills of broken time.
Where the towers of winds
Blow the madrigals call
Across green meadows
That fill the space between.
And the marjoram, basil
Bedstraw, medick and thyme
Cling to hills, dissolved
Perched against the verdant plain.
Here, lost above the accusing
Poppies that proclaim propriety to
Ground turned over, broken.
Deep chalky, treads, ruts.
Heralding the wind
They shake like barley.
Foreboding and filled
Blood red as memory.
It now sits, crouched against the
Shivering, vulnerable bark
Of a grey hawthorn
Smelling the white of death.
And old as the hard Earth
And in the earth
Plucked from Cornish shores
Where waves crash on rocks
Serpentine, red, worn.
Curled around eternal life.
Holding in magma, a past -
A gateway between worlds
Now points to the west
That disappears, as each league
Rolls, wavers, meanders. To
Where the sun increasingly falls.
A rock, as hard as
Life itself, rounded
Shamed, beaten, rolled
With gleam and shimmer
Light reflecting, holding
All the past that eroded
Pulled apart and polished
This hand filled rock.
And what of any observer?
Who stumbles upon this chalk-land place?
High, above that vale?
They will wonder why
They will ask....
"This is a stone that should not be there!?"