Before colours could bleed their
Confidence-trick confusions
Into the new day
The wandering hidden people danced;
Danced to celebrate reaching
Season-border clapper bridge.
Dressed in sliver and grey motley they
Wove loose-limbed,
Long-step patterns around
Rippling pyres of tall, blue pale flames.
The world around lay fierce-choke quiet,
Holding a night-long breath:
Yet I felt the music:
Echo-ghost voices of deep-jet whales,
Ice-heart sibilant percussives,
Vibrations of undiscovered stars,
Chorus winds of dragon-banner conflict.
They shunned me not,
Showed gentle respect and,
Though I know I will not meet them again,
I no longer neither doubt not fear
Their presence here,
For they belong as much as we –
And I hold the future closer, tighter now.
21/2/2013
Related articles
- Tarr Steps: 3,000-year-old bridge ‘where the devil sunbathed’ is rebuilt after floods washed away two-tonne stone slabs (dailymail.co.uk)
- 3,000-year-old bridge known as the Devil’s sunbathing spot is washed away as 2012 comes to a very wet close (thisismoney.co.uk)
- Tarr Steps gets a mention (loiselden.com)
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what a special place that bridge must be. I think I saw it on a prog on the tele…
I know the bridge at Tarr Steps, although we’ve not been there for a long while, and was pleased to read of the reassembly of the stones after flooding. It makes a fine subject for a poem and I like your idea od incorporating the ‘hidden people’ – a great sense of the deep past.
Such a beautifully resonant poem – deserves publication and a much wider audience. Thank you very much! 🙂
Thanks, I really appreciate that comment, and… It’s a pleasure!