Sunday 13 January 2013

THE BROKEN WILLOW

 
 
 

The Broken Willow
 
Beware! For I am the wild East Wind,
Terrible, indeed, in the power I can wield.
Back in the icy tundra I was born
And grew in fury as I crossed the frozen wastes,
Picking up, along the way,
Innumerable whisperings and murmurings,
And learning secrets only ever spoken to the wind.
 
It was I who, in years before your time,
Brought to this shore the cruel dragon prows
And, with them, terror, pain and death.
But, in truth, I have no need of other agents,
For I have the power, myself, to initiate
Bitter destruction in my wake.
Those who boldly fish the sea
In boats of fragile planks of wood,
Know me and fear for their lives
For, at a whim, I summon up the waves
And send their bodies
Rolling, lifeless, to the shore.
 
Only The Stone can stand against me
As together we create a song
In which my icy breath
Plays upon the ancient edifice
Strange, arcane and prehistoric tunes;
A rare glissando of rising, held, and falling notes,
Bizarre, lost scales of random accidentals
And not-quite sharps and flats,
Just as I have played the stones for centuries.
Few people comprehend the sound,
But some still feel, inside, a restlessness of spirit
That, day or night, will take them out
To walk, unreconciled, on hillside, cliff
Or wave-beleaguered shore,
Where canny seabirds, free-spirits of the air,
Dance to the tune upon my prancing back.
 
Yet you, a fragile, shaking willow,
Think that you can stand against me.
Beware! For I will twist your limbs unmercifully
Upon the rack of your own making,
Far beyond the point you can endure.
Beware! I say, for I can break you,
And I will……

 

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am sure I posted to this poem a few days back. Love the allusion to the Norse invaders.

BM

Pete Thompson said...

Hey Bruce, praise from a writer as talented as you is especially good. Here in East Yorkshire the dialect is so close to Norwegian that when some norse soldiers were over here during the war they could converse with the locals. Me, I'm more of a celt (dark and surly) probably descended from the Parisii who occupied the land north of the Humber.

Pete Thompson said...

The Stone referred to in the poem, by the way, is Rudston Monolith - the tallest single standing stone in Britain. It stands in what is now a churchyard but was erected over 4000 years ago. It's an amazing 'place of power' that I visit time and time again.