Here we stand upon the plain
in our weathered ring;
know the nature of our grain,
hear the song we sing.
Millions of years ago
on our native land,
steady sea and river flow
layered silt and sand.
Onto silt-sand water poured,
full of magic quartz,
formed a solid sarsen hoard
fit for shielding forts.
Ice Age freeze and thaw swept Earth,
cracked the sandstone store,
so we boulders had our birth
as majestic tor.
On the southern downs we lay
in our grassy bed,
until one New Stone Age day,
Man came by and said:
‘We have built a healing place
high on yonder mound;
now we ask, with goodly grace,
come, protect our ground.’
We agreed and sledge was rolled,
with five hundreds force,
sky turned purple, red and gold,
as we took our course.
Then Man raised us with glad cries
all round bluestones shrine,
stars shone countless wondrous
eyes
on our lofty line.
Thus began our watch to keep
till the end of time,
when this world at last shall
sleep,
silencing our rhyme.
Here we stand upon the plain
in our weathered ring;
know the nature of our grain,
hear the song we sing.
* * *
This poem was inspired by watching Happenstance perform
‘Stones’ at the Festival. It’s another example of a piece that merges
performance and imagination. I visited Stonehenge on the way back from a
holiday in the New Forest in Autumn 2008 and I
enjoyed revisiting the site through music and memories.
The rhythm of the Song takes it cue partly from the beat of
the drum that contributes to the music. I hoped to muster the same strength in
my writing; in performance, I start each line with a stressed syllable. This is not an iamb,
but a trochee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trochee),
with the final word of each line held to make a total of four beats.
Sometimes a poem becomes a song in my head, as I listen to
my words while writing them. This song makes for a bit of a spectacle too, as
the stones sing of their birth, their journey to Salisbury Plain, and their
purpose. I don’t know much about the history of the site, but I found a lot of
useful information online (e.g. https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/stonehenge/history-and-research/research/)
The notion that the large outer stones have a protective
role, surrounding the smaller ‘bluestones shrine’, is my own, though there are
a lot of theories concerning Stonehenge so it
wouldn’t surprise me to unearth this via further e-foraging. I like the idea
that the site was intended for healing.
