About…

The poem is about the events at the neolithic site of

[close by the White Horse at Uffington] on the ridgeway [the ancient causeway across southern england].

Book 301 is intended to be a collection of poems by Mike Burr for 2010 with no thematic precept.

Wayland's smithy

towers of silence reach for the open space beyond the vaulted trees
your wooden tears may each hold the decayed in cold curved reflection
and fate may seem unjust
teeth that grate the greyness of the sky, erect, and grind oblivion
across cheeks of days, are but a portal to your world of mystery
where in your small stone cave a dwarf or a lizard hop
or bones may, blanched upon the russet floor
play tunes upon the stone
and fate may sound accursed
sing your song in trapezoidal stone pointing north nor west
beyond the ridge where white horses gallop in the chalk
to vales of woodland where albino buck and hinds long teeth
have fallen and excarnated shine and sing in harmony
the hunters 'mong primeval bract a foraging will hear its call
and down the ages though we do not understand its dolefull music fully
we will sacrifice a child and lend its white skull
to your strange purpose, brothers, though we hate
the cruel desires of fate
from a trench we will bury all that bitterness among the petroglyph
if not the quirky fears underneath a mound of chalk and leafy loam
our world will walk on while sarsens teeth that slowly
grind their lines upon the winter cheeks at night
where lizard pegasus and taurus and the pleiades too grind
upon the crystal sphere that holds hermetics of the stars
or shine dully in springs blue periwinkle morning
climbing through the vaulted trees
their spirits float away accompanied by chaffinch song
and in unfolding bracken do we see revenge unfurl
the clasp of fate undone

Sources…

Details of

Wayland's smithy

here on wiki Went there on a cycling trip 24 April 2010.

Image of

Wayland smithy's portrait

One interesting interpretation of the structure may be found about halfway down the page here :-

Wayland's smithy interpreted

though what significance is placed on the many holes in the stones [see previous portrait above] and how the night skies over that last 5 millenia have changed and whether this has been accomodated i wouldnt hazard a guess