A blackbird is singing in a distant oak.
Now that the may blossom has fallen
the hawthorn is festooned with a white,
wild clematis – traveller’s joy or
old man’s beard. Hereabouts, people have
hunted, gathered, built, farmed, worshipped,
imagined – and some, undoubtedly, thieved
and murdered – in a continuing commune
for at least six thousand years and more,
longer than Babylon, longer than Rome.
It is nothing compared with the stars,
which most of them will have marvelled at,
but, nevertheless, it seems worth noting.
As well as the exactitude of books,
history is written in earth works,
standing stones, a copper coin and a mound
of periwinkle shells.
By David Selzer