Leaf 340 – Art Inspired
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| Shima Tamami - Forest Song (1962) |
This poem was loosely inspired
by two things: Firstly, by Shima Tamami’s print, ‘Forest Song’ (1962). And secondly,
by a long walk to Chanctonbury Ring on England’s South Downs when I was around ten
years old. Chanctonbury Ring itself is a ring of beech trees, originally planted
in 1760, along the remnants of a circular, prehistoric earthen rampart atop Chanctonbury
Hill. The prehistoric site’s exact purpose is not known, although it is thought
to have been used variously, either as a hill fort, a civic refuge, a livestock
enclosure, or as a religious sanctuary; although it was certainly used for the
latter purpose during the later Roman occupation of Britain, with two distinct
temple or religious cult-like buildings having been found on the site. At the
time of visiting, this unknown, pre-Christian religious association really caught hold of my overly-fertile
imagination and I felt as though there was something darkly magical moving with
the wind roaring loudly through the boughs of these tall trees and the raucous cawing of sinister,
black-feathered crows. Sadly, not long afterwards, the ring was broken, as many
of the trees were destroyed by the Great Storm of 1987.
Wind shivers a copse,
where druids once
communed with crows.
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