View of the Shropshire-Welsh borderland, a landscape shaped by farming communities since at least the Bronze Age some four thousand years ago
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“I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for awhile, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was a pearl
of great price, the one field that had
the treasure in it…”
Excerpt from the The Bright Field by R S Thomas
RIFT
Not homeland,
but sourceland;
scored in genetic code;
branded in bone:
thorn trees’ jasmine scent,
red pepper dust on the tongue,
sifted on skin,
while beneath our feet
obsidian’s glint,
shards of the earth’s dark heart;
the Rift,
riven,
wide
open
copyright 2015 Tish Farrell
Inside Autumn by Nomzi Kumalo. Please take joy in the work of this wonderful poet
Multicoloured leaves along the street in a hill
Wood soaked and sweetened by the rain falling
Merciful water dripping onto quiet pavements
Dribbling slippery down the tarred thirsty road
A neutral sky where the air harbours no pressure
The rooftops and local windows leaking domestic
An uninspired dog lays heavy by an entrance hall
When there is nothing to do is there nothing to do
Flattened tired carpets still pretend to be luxury
Inside wooden walls of the same old thing again
Sometimes the coffee steaming will hold comfort
One of those days without a name to label it by
Forgotten picture frames capture some yesterdays
Glossy managed smiles and gestures from parties
The trolls and magnets and broken love messages
Settled into grown up life and ways of escaping it
The stale kitchen mood meets a crisp autumn air
Spring long dead visits the city to play some tricks
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It’s silly, I know, but I tend to think that valuing heritage is a rather modern concept, very British – probably kicking off in the eighteenth century with all those landowners filling their bosky domains and deer parks with Grecian grottoes and Roman temples, and Lord Elgin using diplomatic privilege to ‘save’/ make off with the Parthenon’s marbles. So years ago, when I first discovered this Saxon poem in Penguin Classics’ The Earliest English Poems, I was both amazed and captivated.
Even in its fragmentary, fire-damaged state, and some thirteen hundred years after it was written, the words come powering through. It has been well translated of course by Michael Alexander. In his introduction he says he believes it to be a description of the ruined Roman spa city of Bath – Aquae Sulis (Somerset, England), and written some 300 years after the Romans left Britain. I’m posting it as a source of inspiration for all poets writing in English. All those alliterative compound nouns – showershields and gravesgrasp – don’t they just hit the mark!
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The Ruin
Well-wrought this wall: Wierds broke it.
The stronghold burst…
Snapped rooftrees, towers fallen, the work of Giants, the stonesmiths mouldereth.
Rime scoureth gatetowers
rime on mortar.
Shattered the showershields, roofs ruined,
age under-ate them.
And the wielders and wrights?
Earthgrip holds them – gone, long gone,
fast in gravesgrasp while fifty fathers
and sons have passed.
Wall stood,
grey lichen, red stone, kings fell often,
stood under storms, high arch crashed –
stands yet the wallstone, hacked by weapons,
by files grim-ground…
…shone the old skilled work
…sank to loam-crust.
Mood quickened mind, and a man of wit,
cunning in rings, bound bravely the wallbase
with iron, a wonder.
Bright were the buildings, halls where springs ran,
high, horngabled, much throng-noise;
these many meadhalls men filled
with loud cheerfulness: Wierd changed that.
Came days of pestilence, on all sides men fell dead,
death fetched off the flower of the people;
where they stood to fight, waste places
and on the acropolis, ruins.
Hosts who would build again
shrank to the earth. Therefore are these courts dreary
and that red arch twisteth tiles,
wryeth from roof-ridges, reacheth groundwards…
Broken blocks…
There once many a man
mood-glad, goldbright, of gleams garnished,
flushed with wine-pride, flashing war-gear,
gazed on wrought gemstones, on gold, on silver,
on wealth held and hoarded, on light-filled amber,
on this bright burg of broad dominion.
Stood stone houses; wide streams welled
hot from the source, and a wall all caught
in its bright bosom, that the baths were
hot at the hall’s hearth; that was fitting…
……………..
Thence hot streams, loosed, ran over hoar stone
unto the ring-tank…
….It is a kingly thing
…city….
Copyright Michael Alexander 1966
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You can buy an e-pub copy at this link:
The Earliest English Poems Penguin Classics
Anglo-Saxon poetry was produced between 700 and 1000 AD for an audience that delighted in technical accomplishment, and the durable works of Old English verse spring from the source of the English language.
Michael Alexander has translated the best of the Old English poetry into modern English and into a verse form that retains the qualities of Anglo-Saxon metre and alliteration. Included in this selection are the ‘heroic poems’ such as Widsith, Deor, Brunanburh and Maldon, and passages from Beowulf; some of the famous ‘riddles’ from The Exeter Book; all the ‘elegies’, including The Ruin, The Wanderer, The Seafarer, The Wife’s Complaint and The Husband’s Message, in which the virtu of Old English is found in its purest and most concentrated form; together with the great Christian poem The Dream of the Rood.
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Frizz’s tagged ‘S’ for more bloggers’ stories
'Out of Africa Always Something New' Not homeland, but sourceland; Scored in genetic code, Branded in bone: Thorntrees' jasmine scent, Red pepper dust on the tongue, Sifted on skin, While beneath our feet Obsidian's glint, Shards of the earth's dark heart; The Rift, Riven, Wide Open DP Challenge: Playing with Space Copyright 2013 Tish Farrell
House Building
Creative Commons photo: Jerzy Strzelecki
I’m thinking of women whose life is immeasurably harder than mine. Could I, for instance, walk the Maasai woman’s barefoot daily trek across wild bush country, searching for firewood, fetching water, taking produce to market? Could I have reared children in the dung and wattle hut that I had built myself? Could I live obeying a husband’s commands even when I thought them wrong? What kind of bravery, tenacity and inner strength would I need to live this way, and to still live well? These days, things are slowly changing for Maasai women, not least because campaigners from their own communities are pressing for girls’ education, the end of genital mutilation and forced teen marriages. But for outsiders visiting the Mara it is all too easy to see only the grinding poverty and the reconstituted, fit-for-tourist shreds of former warrior glamour. But before jumping to too many conclusions about what is really going on, here is my version of a Maasai traditional story that sheds some light (literally) on their own views of the man-woman relationship.
And the moon still shines
Long ago Sun wanted a wife
so he married Moon and they made a pact,
to ply the sky in endless round,
Sun ahead, Moon behind.
And each month, tiring of the trek,
Sun carried Moon-Wife on his back.
But then one day they came to blows.
Moon crossed Sun and Sun lashed out,
beating his Moon-Wife black and blue.
Moon struck back. She slashed Sun’s brow.
He gouged her cheek, plucked out an eye.
Later Sun fumed: I’ll shine so hard
that none will ever see my scars.
While Moon tossed her head:
Why hide my wounds?
I still light up the night sky.
Creative Commons
Photo: William Warby (flickr.com)
Text: Copyright 2013 Tish Farrell
Tish Farrell 