On The South Downs

Wed the land, and learn it by heart;

In this life and flesh you are now,

As the sun winds.

Live the hills and meadows and rivers,

The weather changing its mind.

See your life with a skylark’s eye.

Through the gateway of trees

I cross the threshold:

Between the pillars

Of left and right,

Mother and father,

Night and day.

A graveyard yew I touch

With hand and mind,

And greet the souls of the departed.

Like a pig feasting

On delicious mast,

I hail the Lady of the Woods-

Druids’ book,

Grey and lovely beech tree!

Like a blackbird on my shoulder,

Time sings of rise and fall,

Of in and out.

Back to the trackways

Of our forefathers,

Walking, moving

As nomads of loving attention,

Crossing fields and woods,

Climbing over stiles,

Communing at moots, toots and tumps,

Let us go...

Drink from the sun’s amber chalice,

And walk with the trees...

Curves of the earth,

All queenly shoulders, thighs and buttocks,

This chalk world was made

From the steaming sea,

As the coccoliths died and sank

To the floor, they created chalk,

Combining with sponges, fish,

Sea-urchins, sea-lilies and ammonites,

All hefted up out of the brew,

The giantess’s body

Which our feet cling to.

These solid green clouds...

As an Irish bard would retreat

Into a black room

And lie with a stone on his chest,

To meditate and dream

Beyond his body,

So I take to the dragon-paths...

The red wyvern and the white

Divide this land,

And life, the adder,

Reserves its precious venom

For the worthy.

From the north you come upon him:

The Long Man of Wilmington,

Standing tall over the fields,

Holding his staves open

As a doorway between worlds;

His body crossed by sheep paths

At crown,

Throat,

Solar plexus

And perineum;

The powers of the earth

He grasps in his hands,

King and queen

Of the seasons;

We are the wounded,

Where the holy enters time,

As the seed

Spears the ovum

And a soul ascends.

Why should I look

To the wisdom of far lands

When this country’s tree

Has roots and branches

Enough to climb

For a thousand lifetimes?

Giants of the earth and sky,

Through me flows

The same fierce glory

That fires your striding limbs,

And consecrates me

Poet, warrior and priest!

Pagan torches burned on

To the last in this goblin realm,

Where wolf and bear

Clawed off the missionary,

Wish hounds chase the souls

Of the damned overhead,

And the phantasmal dord

Sounds in the woods.