29th September 2013
We make our own way up from common choices,
out through hill-ridge maize, thistle-heads thick
with seed to go, taking turn with gentle passers
who share this wired-in midfield footpath run.
And it has all gone to seed, no flowers shine
only the deep afternoon light, containing and kind.
In the second valley bottom a broad meadow
holds two sump lakes and the way is hoofed
sludge, to suck down a boot, but today, squelch
and pass friend over switchback at wood's edge.
sodden too in deeps.
A walkway saves, made
of tree-trunks pegged by trunk stakes, hard earth
tamped infill - trunk steps too, over this NT wood.
From a crest, the tall trees clutch the sun, path
sweeps down majestically. Then see below
a flat-topped outcrop, fun to scale, as you will,
to rest a moment among boughs of trees
lodged in the rock-face and ascending.
Down across a stream, following it along
the wood's edge over folds and hillocks -
always on our right, golden light, maize fields.
An old rail-track runs around a two-seventy,
plunging straight into a sheer cliff. Iron plate
door bars the way and a cold wind blows
out through a hole, size of a miner's neck
Boom! Boom! Bang on it and ask of Goblins.
Oh. Now the climb, the testing, as legs ache,
lungs burn and breath pants out for resting,
to the top of a high ridge, a little step to sit
and picnic, shaped by a conspiracy of tree roots
and graced by the lookout of a foothold tree.
One more haul-ass and we are out among the rocks
of a popular view - and there's the little crowd.
But after a jewelled dazzle, we are down bound
for the secrets of the Goddess in rock and leaf,
the spring and renewing waters channeled;
and if required, we place the leaf to gutter
water from its spout into the stone trough
dogs may drink from and be sustained.
Then another climb and we are at the Wizard's well,
pretty much dried up, the face is worn nigh away
the writing has been touched up where it can.
It's a little sad and ineffectual, though a rhyme.
"Drink of me / and take thy fill
For the water falls / by the Wizards will."
Whether by will or willy it falls no more, a drip.
So back we go to one more grand show
the Cheshire plain from a broad flat rock
pegged with rudimentary stumps of pillars.
The walk is sunny yet, though in our eyes
the raking light. Eat blackberries, then climb
to the Armada Beacon site, a fern hill with
daring lover's table if ever was one (by night).
Now there remains the Goblin back door.
It is a dead-end shaft, when they want it to be.
One day it will lie open to us and we will enter;
until then, we test it again every venture..
YOU ARE READING
Under The Wings
Poetry.Under the Wings of the Egyptian and world-wide respected Goddess, Isis. Poems of Nature, Inner Resonance and Mythology.
