1353
The yew tree stands next to the Saxon chapel
Older than memory, its bifurcated spine
Propped and roped to protect its fragile life.
The yew tree stands
And so when the long Man's cutters grappled
With chalk or made their way in line
Along the cursus, with skin drum and bone fife,
To celebrate the solstice, as the knife
At sunrise cut across the downs to shine
Continuance to a valley, damp and dappled.
The yew tree stands.
Brian Hick March 2014
©copyright Sally Hick 14.4.25
972
A mist hangs over Wilmington
And the Long Man hides
In history below the Downs
The barrows and the lives
Of men and women who have farmed
These acres since the land
First yielded to the ploughshare
Where wheat and rape now stand.
Before the church, before the yew
These fields were formed to bear
A harvest for the southern folk
Who dwelt and worshipped here.
They cut a cursus from the west
Deep rutted in the turf
Five thousand years before the cross
Meant anything on earth.
And still it sits pointing the way
To the final resting place
Of seers whose insights formed the minds,
The spirits of the race
Who settled here an age ago
Absorbing all who came
Among these hills and sheepy vales,
Still cosseting the flame.
Passed down to us, who've always known
The Long Man watches over
His people on the Southern Downs -
And those who crop his clover.
Dr Brian Hick summer 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 11.8.23
680
Vigil (concerning the Long man of Wilmington.S Hick)
Slow softness of the dusk
Kind inter-change
A blur of greys and greenness
Below the comfortable half-circle of the sun
Snugging in behind the silhouette
Of Ditchling on to Firle.
Sit and wait;
For nothing can prevent
The darkness which will come
Nor yet the light
Inevitable as perfection
Rising at my back
To cut dawn's lies.
Unseen, your outline stands
Above the Yew
Leading inwards
Orpheus-like, but true.
Brian Hick Feb 2010
©copyright Sally Hick Feb 2022
1353
The yew tree stands next to the Saxon chapel
Older than memory, its bifurcated spine
Propped and roped to protect its fragile life.
The yew tree stands
And did so when the Long Man’s cutters grappled
With the chalk or made their way in line
Along the cursus, with skin drum and bone fife,
To celebrate the solstice, as the knife
At sunrise cut across the downs to shine
Continuance to a valley, damp and dappled.
The yew tree stands.
Brian Hick
©copyright 2021 S Hick
