The Ancient Cow and Calf Rocks

 

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Thanks to curious feelings 
(Which touched the Earth’s own personal history)
The mind broke loose
To venture into the epic wilds
Of Carboniferous history.

But firstly: a sharp blast from the modern age -
A mass of carved names
Deeply scared into sandy flesh.
Many from the birth pangs 
Of the long, bloody last century. 
Take ‘Jack, 1902’ — just a brief whisper 
From one man’s very own, 
Very special, 1902 day.

A smoothly-moving glazier 
(In an Ice Age dream) 
Brought these rocks down 
In downpour upon downpour 
Of falling rock.
The Earth’s rock-bones 
Now run deeper, farther 
(In that yielding ground) 
Than the roots of any oak.
And that drawn out, solid spine, 
Runs straight across fields,
Up the rocky fells
And over crowning moors, 
Then down to kindred valleys.

With these unspoken links, 
The rocks bind us to the long gone, 
And to the long dead.

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© Paul Austin Murphy 2021

[I can be found on Twitter here.]