Loose Leaves – Art Inspired
This long poem completes a sort
of “Saxon triptych” (see, Leaf 113 & Leaf 156). It was originally written
and posted on Bluesky in response to a #SenseWrds writing prompt to compose a
poem inspired by (but not using) the words: ‘Mosaic, Frost, Enchanting.’
Reflecting on these words, I soon found myself thinking of an old Anglo-Saxon
poem fragment which, as an archaeologist, has always been one of my favourites.
Reading ‘The Ruin,’ it is almost as if the Saxon poet can foresee the future
archaeologists coming in search of the past with their trowels, much in the
same manner in which the poet explores the old Roman ruins (possibly Aquae
Sulis, or present day Bath), the abandoned remnants of several hundred years of
imperial occupation, which had long been and gone before she or he decided to
write about it.
In much the same manner, I have attempted to write a similar,
alliterative poem using an old, Saxon-inflected voice to give a modern
archaeologist’s eye view as to what the so-called “Dark Ages” might actually
have been like in reality. Not so much a fall from civilisation, but rather a
redefining of a distinct cultural identity; an identity which was in fact
deeply rooted in the past, and one which still informs the present day too.
BRITANNIA’S END
After an old Anglo-Saxon poem
fragment, ‘The Ruin.’*
Following the well-cobbled roads
their conquering fore-fathers
laid,
the last Legionaries left.
Returned to Rome,
slowly their white-rimed ruins
receded into a ghostly realm.
Four hundred Imperial summer’s
yielded,
and white-winter enfolding the
land;
oak, ash and elder, awaiting a
new era.
The old stones, wyrd broken;
the mysterious work of giants
spoken only of, in mythic tones.
Snow-shrouded, whited out,
colourful pavement tiles and
gaudy painted plaster walls.
Landed parchments scraped clean,
deed-scripts drawn upon age-faded
palimpsests; bounds still echoing
ages afore.
So, whited-winter brought, a
welcome return
to brown wood and earth; the
hearth-warm
hubbub of the meadhall’s gilded
ease.
White-misted breath, hailing
the bard’s word-hoarded tales of
old;
eyes glinting, goldbright, and
mood-glad.
So slept the land, ready to wake;
awaiting the rejuvenating warmth
of ground-greening Spring:
Bringing a new dawn,
and a new idea of all
that Albion might be.
*See, 'The Ruin', translated by Michael Alexander, The Earliest English Poems (Penguin, 1977)
Photograph Credits: Gernot Keller/Wikipedia / Victor Ambrus/HistoryFiles / Classical Numismatic Group/Wikipedia
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