Binsey

sun casts
a sodium light
on the clattering woods

what pops
the visual field -

strokes of havoc
on the aspen row
or the eye burst

so we end up
looking down a hole
forever ?

hope at times
is cruelly eaten
like the boy
by the Spartan fox

an archaeology
of sound
will find silence
beneath the A34’s
static roar

discover quiet
in the stringent wind

and screams
laid out
in pellets
for territory

Antioch in Binsey
is a hutch of pain

and all the hole is
is a socket
in the ground
trickling mud
and water

here evil
is supposed to break

so some of us
see again
and walk free
of its dragon shape

instead hope
remains quelled
as it exits the gate

trying
to get back
over the fields

past the loud highway
and stumbling nightfall
in time

Blackwells
Oxford
10 January 2018

Refer to Gerard Hopkins’ ” Binsey Poplars” (1879) for the ocular and arboreal themes. There is a holy well associated with the 7th century Saxon saint Frideswide at the Binsey Church. That church is dedicated to St Margaret of Antioch ( martyred 304 AD). There were several Antiochs in the ancient world, and Margaret may have come from Antioch in Pisidia, in Asia Minor, rather than Antioch on the Orontes in Syria. This poem incorporates elements from both their hagiographies. Margaret was swallowed by a dragon, while both women were pursued by abusive and unwelcome suitors.

The story of the Spartan boy who concealed a fox is a well known tale of Lakedaimonian stoicism and endurance. The A34 is a highway through Oxfordshire.

I visited Binsey on 3 January 2018.