IN THIS PLACE Around Glastonbury

In this place I half expect to glimpse
out of the corner of my eye
some prehistoric man,
barefoot and wary.
Wrapped in skins and rags he darts
into a thicket as I turn.
Or on a winter's morning I might come across
a silent rower
sliding in his dugout boat through flooded meadows.

In this place the landscape crouches;
holds me in its secrets like a gin trap
snapping shut where unsuspecting walkers tread;
and Memory,
shape-shifting,
faintly murmurs love and life and death and sad regret and conflict.
In this place we live a whisper from the edge of worlds;
a hair's-breadth from the boundaries of our comprehensions.

In this place the sense of age
mocks
all our busyness
and watches us rush
sightless, unaware
across the thin
skin
of the present.
And it seems as if Time
waits here hungry
to reduce us all
to sliding shadows in the mist.

So,
in this place
which spawned so many legends
can I trust the old tale's truth?

And did those feet in ancient times
(and do they still)
walk  here, imprinting all our insignificant concerns with love?
And does the maker of all things
still weave our fragile "now!
into his patterned plan?

Or are we dust?

Just

Tomorrow's history?


5th Sept 91