Genius Loci

[Hawkman]

Where is the horse that was running?
Where is the rider who fell?
Where are the legions that once marched away
in tales, the old seldom tell?

Leather and steel, the tramping of feet;
the roads now long buried by grass,
pointing the way back to home, it is said,
but there’s no one to ask as I pass.

Sunken lanes lurking with wheel-rutted tracks
hidden in time by the land,
trees that have grown on the edges of banks
shading the past with their fans.

Barrows and long-ships that hold in their cysts
chieftains and kings of the past,
beneath swelling turf in the ancient green fields
their relics were laid there to last.

Their dust is now mingled and one with the ground,
earth that they ruled in their prime;
where legends and rumours survive of their deeds
they fade with the passing of time.

Their voices I hear as they call on the wind,
their wealth I can see in the sky;
at sunset’s last touch as it bruises the hills,
their splendour beheld by my eye.

This is my home and I’m cast of the clay
that history shaped with its hands,
their presence is close to me here where I stand,
descendant and heir to their lands.

[tailor STATELY]

Kudos for the title.

Which came first the poem or the title ? I would guess the latter.

Enjoyable read. I read your poem as if a multitude of male voices of medium/low timbre were reciting in chant throughout; as if there were spirits of the land that were speaking to me (as opposed to the spatial atmosphere).

Well done,
tailor STATELY

[hillwalker]

A brilliant evocation of our ancient heritage, be it Celtic, Viking, Roman or Anglo Saxon.....

and I love the image

sunset’s last touch as it bruises the hills

Did you happen to mention recently that you were going to write some 'real poetry'? I think you just have..... again.

H

[Bar22do]

You're a rooted man, and your hawk's soul guards your beloved lands ... My preferred here:

"This is my home and I’m cast of the clay
that history shaped with its hands,"

though it's all powerful and good.

Best! - Bar

[hack]

This is great Hawk.
A very different world than my little patch of earth.

No whisper of Rome
No longships crowding any shore
No Saxon storm gathering
No Pictish keening wake

My sunken lanes
are animal trails or
stacked rock blinds
on ridgeback hillsides
where ancients hid
to cast stone tipped death.

No ruts worn by any,
but restless hooves.
No men, except a few,
that never, in any dream,
dreamt me.

[PrinceMyshkin]

“And where,” asked Villon, “are the snows
of yesteryear?”
Had he but known
the rich till of your memory,
the service you perform,
he might have spared himself
that question...

[Hawkman]

Hi tailor In answer to your question the poem actually came first because I had a mental block for the expression, Genius Loci. It took me ages to remember it :D That it stimulated your imagination as you read it is all any writer can ask. I’m very happy that you enjoyed it.

Thanks hill, I’m flattered that you found it so pleasing. There are times when I wish that I could write with the density of imagery you employed to such effect in Badgerwatch but my lines don’t flow that way. That you regard this as a real poem is a relief. Honestly, I wasn’t sure about it, but it seems to have touched a chord with a few people :)

Thanks, Bar, glad you liked it. In case you hadn’t noticed, all that talk of Tolkien fed the synapses for this one. There is a poem of the Rohirrim that has a similar beginning.

"Where is the horse and the rider...?"

Mine grew out of it for Tolkien’s sense of place and love of the country is the same as mine.

Hack, your response is fabulous. Give it a title and publish it. It’s strong enough to stand in its own right. Thanks for enjoying my poem and for sharing yours.

My Prince, I had no need to go back to Helen or Cleopatra. My sense of place is rooted in the earth I walk every day, the stone circles on the moors; at Sutton Hoo and Stone Henge, in the Roman walls still standing and the buried roads that lead to them. Here the land speaks to me, and although that sounds like twaddle it’s actually true :D

So Thank you all for gracing this thread with your thoughts and comments.

Live and be well, H