The Copse

Leaf 340 – Art Inspired

 

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.

 

 

 

Ian Hawfinch - Chanctonbury Ring (Geograph)

Chanctonbury Ring and other archaeological sites (Ordnance Survey, 1934)