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