Archive > Arcana
Unearthed
Bones tarred and old as peat,
alarming pegs for a skull of teeth,
empty eyes wild to bolt or fight,
ribs the staves of its barrel bulk.
Unearthed bellowing from below
the sucking clutch of cold soil,
to thrash in panic, lurch up,
and stagger back to stand,
quivering on cloven hooves,
antlers poised to whirl and clash
on wielded pagan spear and shield.
Petrified, held at bay
Megaloceros giganteus,
this Great Irish Elk bull,
where it has stood,
four-square for all these years,
palmate antlers wide in welcome,
still the wary herbivore,
ghosts of its ears pricked,
watching this strange, dry world,
the pale bones of its real home,
green and rain, trees and bog
And a boy,
smelling the dust and death,
seeing this forest-god, dragon, minotaur
this earth-elemental, elf-mount
that all but moves its head
to watch as he walks by,
bellows its buried roar
down long corridors,
stamps the cold mud, snorts
warm clouds into the chill …
a boy gazing his awed elation
at this marvel, this glorious proof.
Blackberrying
Passing away our days in play
We knew the signs of autumn
Saw the change from green to red to black
And rambled off over rusting fields
With bags and boxes and buckets
To the bramble hedgerows where the blackberries grew
The bushes thicketing to impenetrable mounds
Weaving nests of exotic spiked snakes
Jewelled with rubies like boiled sweets
To lose hours in wordless, determined harvesting
Soft fingers plucking at softer fruits
Eating the one in ten tithe of what we picked
And always, higher up, out of reach
The biggest berries
Shiny, perfect and black like the faerie royal gems
Forever unobtainable
And for days after we ate sweet, tart pies
And pulled tiny thorns out of purple-blue fingers
It Was All Fields Round Here
We roared across this land
Lords of the woods and glens and sands
Held court
In the hidden hollows of a tree’s cupped hands
Mid-stream islands that appeared
On no known map
A sacred clearing held in the heart
Of fields of long grass
Through which we trod secret paths
The ears of the corn high above our own
To plot bitter border wars
Then fall asleep
Tiny ageless spiders exploring our soft skin
With the delicacy of air
Our bodies melting and glowing in the sun
All ours to harvest, all ours to burn
And then, unassailable,
We sailed away
Leaving the trees and the the bees
To whisper
To the quick, fearless, little new Lords
Legends of giants
And the high old days
A Lorry Tale
Lessons of religion meant nothing
Just meaningless words to me
The death of loved pets a sore loss
Grieved all the way until tea
But then a lorry, stuck in building-site mud
And as we watched one of us said
It'll be stuck there for ever now
And in that simple moment
The gulf of infinity opened up
No longer a child in an eternal present
I understood what life and death were
The universe grew large but also finite
And somewhere a clock started ticking
The Boy Who Climbed Trees
Every knot, fork and branch a foothold
Outstretched hands to haul you up
A dance of slender sapling limbs
A secret sequence of ritual steps
Muscle-memory choreography
A winding heliotropic vine
To reach the crow’s-nest sanctuary
Where boy and tree swayed as one
I could stay up there for hours, remote from the world, looking quietly down upon it as if I was no longer a part of it.
Once my father, coming home from work, walked under the tree, not seeing me, engrossed in his thoughts, exhausted maybe, not looking up.
I thought to call out to him, surprise him, make him laugh but instead, perhaps not wanting to rejoin the world, I said nothing and he walked on by not knowing I was there.
Taller now, no longer climbed
The boy walked away and the trees remained
Still spiral-staircase upwards
The combination lock unchanged
Waiting still in creaking breezes
The crook that cradled tender feet
Arms and legs recall each dance-step
Still hold the monkey-puzzle’s key
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