What strange ceremonies,
Go on in the Revel wood?
I saw roots there, uncovered,
From beneath the heathen earth,
In the slewing, evening rain.
And from the path,
Along the brook’s broached bank,
I read swirls in the umber water,
Punctuated by pigeon stones,
Upright and fast in the stream.
And there was I, curtailed,
In the shade on the hillside,
Where the rope swing swung,
And the bare bruised earth,
Was carved out below.
From a hedgerow along Doles lane,
I heard the sickening crack of the rice gun.
And went, pursued, into the dense corn,
My feet dragging,
Heavy and terrible in the mud.
Soon I came back on myself.
After lying still, in the pea field,
I traipsed the old Roman road.
And saw the fingers of my village,
Reaching out to Pinchmill.
That week, Michael drowned in the silo.
What terror that bred.
Catching sight of the farm,
And imagining Michael,
Dry-drowning in the grain.
In St Mary’s, I stood out,
Awkward and cantilevered,
Foreign in the pews and never christened -
My father’s umbrage with the vicar
On the matter of original sin
When I was older,
I camped on the sledge field.
A black and a sleepless night,
Shot through with terror,
So close to the Revel wood.