This poem is taken from PN Review 10, Volume 6 Number 2, November - December 1979.
Poem1.
My weald of tales, my beech leaves, my bronze.
A world of trees shades the land's shadow.
Under the tribe's winter, roots of iron,
Roots of grain; and at the thicket's heart
A man's tread, a bird-cry, the glitter
Of a pool rippled with a stone blade,
His last gift. My green eye shuts. Slowly
Drops of light in the night sky falter
My gifts for him: The Hunter, The Plough.
2.
Through the trees, through the ferns, through the
dark: A blade shrived with the eyes of a beast
And its five wounds. Armour chafes the spell
Of the wood, my runes, my tree-letters
Mumble in stones. Deeper the heart folds
Leaves about the rood's axe-shaft, a grove
Where the scaled Worm, the Ravager, lurks.
...
The page you have requested is restricted to subscribers only. Please enter your username and password and click on 'Continue'.
If you have forgotten your username and password, please enter the email address you used when you joined. Your login details will then be emailed to the address specified.
If you are not a subscriber and would like to enjoy the 285 issues containing over 11,500 poems, articles, reports, interviews and reviews, why not subscribe to the website today?
If you have forgotten your username and password, please enter the email address you used when you joined. Your login details will then be emailed to the address specified.
If you are not a subscriber and would like to enjoy the 285 issues containing over 11,500 poems, articles, reports, interviews and reviews, why not subscribe to the website today?