from Blackwater Quartet, selection 33

The Inheritors

In this outpost town where Claudius was god

and empires rose and fell,

a dignity survives in the heritage of masons.

Somehow, the wall still stands.

Earth-tone bricks

shaled by centuries of frost—

the angles rake without regard to gravity.

The centurion, Longinus, recovers his composure,

his gravestone broken in Boadicea’s wake.

The statue’s parts present a picture

empire builders covet:

the law on horseback, a stricture

reminiscent of his childhood in Sofia ‘…tall for his age,

speaks directly, considers life a token.’

The least among us builds against the seasons,

plumb lines reckoning adversity, between the rider

and our world these random blooms of stone,

the sworn blood, the pact

we make in steely commerce.

Ragged Robin, Selfheal, White Campion

In a small village near where I live, there's what the English refer to as 'a green', the meaning of which differs according to the location. I have seen a muddy foreshore along the Essex coast, complete with an old fishing smack rotting down into the silt, with a sign stating that it is a designated village green. In other villages, the greens are well-kept, manicured by volunteer groundsmen (and women) for cricket matches on Sunday and other local activities. If a little peculiar by definition at times, all are orderly in their way.

The village is small, its few houses scattered about a handful of small lanes. It has two pubs, one, along the main road, caters to its clientele with a traditional 'country' style menu, while the other, across the green, is of an older time, but in some ways fulfills the definition of a 'local' better than the larger pub. Access to the smaller pub is via a narrow lane near the church, and a few benches outside its entrance offer patrons a pleasant view across the green.

The green itself is as individual as its brethren elsewhere. At first glance, its appearance is that of a meadow full of wild flowers, mostly yellow and white, with blue flags of cornflower waving through at intervals, and a shout of red here and there where the poppies have made a stand. It's likely that the green has looked the same for eight hundred years. Indeed, today it retains its prettily unkempt appearance until well into summer, when a local farmer drives over and mows it, grass and flower, all.

The cut usually precedes a local summer fayre, and occasionally it's used as a set piece by  traveling circuses, which still make their way round the villages of Norfolk, with jugglers, acrobats, and games for locals on summer evenings. It's these events, and the order of their unfolding, that reinforce and make recognisable the bond to the past. In terms of temperament and preference, a family from 1315 would find the experience little changed from their own time.

In the pub, there are photographs of American bomber crews, standing next to B-24s. Some of the images, in colour, reveal the garish nose art applied to many American bombers in World War Two. They were based about two miles down a lane outside the village, and no doubt this was one of the few places available for local leave. The film actor, James Stewart, was stationed there for a time.

The crews, like the villagers now, like their medieval counterparts, sat and looked across the meadow green, its wild flowers waving in the summer breeze. They left the photographs for the landlord to hang in the pub, as a way of saying thanks for the hospitality, and too, perhaps more urgently, saying, Remember us.

from Blackwater Quartet, selection 32

Summoner

Consider my words, I, a scribe of Memphis
instructed by Isis in her temple underground
in particular my skill at riding crocodiles, a feat 
discounted later by the Greeks

near Half Moon Passage three storeys up
in the window against peeling solar film
the sign’s red
letters this is me, breathing

below, the buses passing Blackwall Tunnel
Isle of Dogs and the man’s greasy neck tattoo
his shirt collar edged
with scorpions

Battersea Park the woman
intent through poppy foliage finds the lost sphere
shaped yellow fast her black
dog leaping

in the station the train mournful whining
in the next seat
the girl the full mouth
her bare toes flexing in her sleep

I, cleansed of imperfections make
this offering under streetlight, instructing
this inevitability
far from my detractors

Others

The rooks rule the place. Hanging above the mist, perhaps three hundred black shapes circling the field and the house below, cawing and cawing. No doubt, reasons for such behaviour can be assigned to the phenomenon, if indeed it is a phenomenon. It's entirely feasible that rooks have been circling these fields on misty mornings for five thousand years, and the appearance of human habitation is considered no more than a temporary land feature, like the river Wensum bursting its banks in a winter flood, or the trees slowly losing their leaves to reveal bones of oak, bones of beech - places for rooks to settle.

I once saw something similar occur on the island where I used to live, along the Essex coast. Upwards of a thousand birds, mainly, it seemed, various gull species, circled in a rising, conical spiral, to a great height. In fact, their individual positions as they circled seemed to define the cone shape. I thought perhaps that it was an unusual, rising current of air that they were caught in, but as I sat watching them for nearly an hour, I became aware of two things. Firstly, other gulls were approaching from the sea and purposefully joining the congregation, and secondly, none of the birds made a sound. The great, rising spiral of birds moved in perfect formation and in perfect silence. 

Some of my neighbours, older residents, could be heard beyond the garden fences, discussing the spectacle, and the fact that none of them, lone-time islanders, had ever previously witnessed any thing like it.

Rooks are different. Moving with equal purpose, the noise - indeed, it is noise rather than song - carries with them as they move through the mist. There is an urgency, an insistence, in the flight and its accompanying clatter.

Then, without noticable external stimulus, they depart, these hundreds, in ones and twos, and then there is only mist, and silence.