Arbor Low

[poliphilo]

My friend veronica_milvus just posted an excellent poem about Arbor Low- the Derbyshire henge. It prompted me to dig out my effort- written nearly 20 years ago- and tidy it up. Gib Hill (short for Gibbet Hill) is a few minutes walk from the henge. It's a neolithic barrow with a bronze age barrow on top of it and- yes- at some stage- I suppose in the 18th century- there was a gibbet there.

                                    ARBOR LOW

 

                                    Aileen stayed in the four wheel drive.

                                    This was the sensible thing to do.

 

                                    The wind was pure unpleasantness,

                                    Slinging the rain like fistfuls of gravel,

 

                                    Beating the gnarly stones.  They looked

                                    Friable, like left-over wodges

 

                                    Of dirty snow.  When I imagine

                                    A priesthood for these places I see

                       

                                    Such men and women as Stukeley emoted

                                    In oakleaf coronets- not today;

 

                                    This weather favours no ghosts but the slatted,

                                    Air-treading low-lives of Gibbet Hill.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

"Friable" is such a brilliantly tactile word.

[oakmouse]

I'd never noticed that, but you're right. I always get distracted by the fact that the word brings an instant visual image --- of friable stone --- to mind, but once I thought about your comment I realized that it also brings a feel to mind, very like the feel of crumbling old stone.