Kingley Vale: a poem

Coming Home:The Kingley Vale Yews by Sue Tordoff

no chimneys smoke no people dwell no holy well, but a pocket of flint smooth sharp when napped it slept in the ground until I found it

in the vee of ancient yew boughs someone placed a stone like an antler, an offering from the deer people echoing the growth of trees

who goes in the grove, who shelters under the skelter of trees, whose hands smooth the rippled bark, whose heart made an altar of the yew?

those ancients walked the land before these trees were seeds, you can feel them still in the quiet of the vee formed by the hills in the valley of the grove of yews of you of me. we are the people

we walk our rainbow walk we talk our raindrop talk we drop our voices under the yews

we sing our ringing hearts we bring our offerings we reel bringing feelings wringing out our hearts what we offer is ourselves under the branches, the shapes of gothic arches. on the silent skyline barrows march. the mewing of the distant buzzard a call to prayer

a prayer that moans in the wind, a wild and silent prayer, entreaty for healing for forgiveness that beseeches here loud in the ear, a buzzing-of-insectsprayer rasping in our heads, a fluttering-of-leaves prayer whispering on the breeze. the clasping of hands and genuflexion. moving branches applaud success

oh yes there is darkness too in the grove, the twilight grows thick here. those with weak bellies go home before sundown. there where shadows move and the shade deepens the only flash a movement at the corner of my eye

the brave merge with the shadow of their past, the wind mourns their passing, life goes on the yews grant life support it hide it seek it live and die it, their rotting in the damp earth thrives I can smell it taste it long after, it’s in my nose my eyes my ears on my tongue. the life of the grove is in my touch, so much life giving, my fingers move at the tree’s will, stroke the colours green-brown-dun pink-lime-purple sunsets in the clouds of bark –stroke the colours polish them a prayer to perfection and now the sharpness of flint opens my hand, cut to the bone blood flows drip drop on to the earth my offering my thanks for the shadows coming home

© Sue Tordoff

Written after visiting the yew grove at Kingley Vale, near West Stoke, West Sussex 8 April 2005