Levels

Above the mist, the grey-green ghosts of Polden elms stand silent over salted fields
And somewhere overhead a heron cuts a dead straight path to shining ponds from ages past
While, unconcerned, the ancient Parrett makes its lazy way towards the surging sea

On days like these I fancy that I hear the steady splash of oars and, passing under humming wires, a sail flap in the breeze
Disturbance caused by vole or swan, or cautious progress of the barge that bears the king to lie at peace in Avalon?
And did those reeds that shiver in the wind once brush against the hulls of kings?

In empty meadows bullocks graze, a rhythm that’s unaltered since the earliest of days
Where open skies looked down on bloodied rags and nails that clawed the fertile earth at death of lost rebellion
Among the rhynes were passions raised and crushed as cattle quietly looked on
And nothing changes, save the hatchling dragonfly upon the stem, while sleeping steeples keep their earthly secret safe
Amen

In the river, sight unseen, the Roach, the Rudd and silver Bream turn beneath the surface, catching nymph or flexing worm, then diving into weed
Descendants of the fish that darted, flashing, in the sun that fell on weary travellers bound from sacred ground to sacred ground
And did this bank on which I stand bear the weight of greatness as it trod upon the land?

I fancy, as I check my lines, that in the chattering flow I hear the sound of voices carrying from earlier times
Then twisting flank of golden scales ignites among the weed like sun upon the missing grail
And do the ripples rolling through the rushes there betray the cruising Chub or are they remnants of the Camlann barge, now resting in the mud?

Hidden in the mist and long-forgotten by the motorway that takes a man from Sedgemoor to Culloden in a single day,
the meadows catch the softly hissing rain and turn the wheel of life from death through to renewal once again
The churches open up their doors and graves to those who come to dwell and heed the tolling of the bell
And the river drains the marsh and dreams of kings and queens and Eastern sails drifting past the rhynes