Larks above the Mist  (part 4)

Epona, goddess of the sky

Lifting heavenward all that fly

Sanctify the light today.

Mid-morning, but the mists have not dispersed

Culling the path to a stone's throw ahead.

Within the grey, a darker shape appears

Forming itself into a monstrous head

Vast and threatening as I approach

But smudged of detail or identity.

Only when I'm close enough to smell

The moss and hear the sodden branches drip

Do I begin to see the blackened trunks

Of the beech copse, sacred to Sol Epona.

Tiptoeing in, the golden canopy

Drops its quiet blessing on my head.

My mind is drifting, almost to prophecy,

As I climb the hilltop, where we herd

The horses for the winter, sensing that,

Two thousand years from now the Iron Folk

Will raise a fortress, Beranburgh by name,

To expel the herders from our native land.

On open downland, along Smeathe's Ridge,

The feral horse herds are left free to roam

Before the Beltane cull and the skill

Of metal-priests who cast the bronze into

The bits and bridles, broaches and spear-heads

Can tame the noblest stallions and mares.

I move on through wooded paths, across

The River Og, and into copses where

Plate mushrooms drip their primordial slime

Onto the rotting leaves and sodden moss

Clogging my feet, chilling bone and mind.

A wind cuts from the east as I emerge

Onto the upland moor, where grazing herds

Are silhouetted dark against the edge,

Moving silent as they crop and watch

Each other, until one breaks free to canter

Off to disappear into the mist.

The valley drops away from Pillow Mound

And on the southern side, a white mare stands

Alone, unmoved, as if she might become

One with the hillside and an icon cut

Like other figures, deep into the chalk.

The larks above the mist which drew me on

All yesterday have vanished as I squelch

This early morning back towards the ridge

And that ancestral tomb which sits just west

Of Dragon Hill and Uffington's White Horse

Leaping with the sun into the east.

Seen from Dragon Hill, the Horse leaps westward

Sinking its head beneath the rough-cut mounds

Yet, close to, its form seems to unwind

Vanishing in arcs of blazing light

And casual hints of where it might have been

Linger as chalk scars in the turf.

Brian Hick October 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 4.10.24