Y Gaer
(The Hill Fort)
Its only defences now, a ring of gorse,
sown yellow in Winter,
its lights diminished come Summer.
Beyond, the mossy gums
of trench and rampart,
gateways that open to the view only
and a stone pile marking the centre,
where my horse threatens beneath me,
jittery from the long gallop,
veins mapping under her skin,
over her twitching muscle;
her nostrils, full of smoking embers.
The land is three-sixty about you here,
an answer to any question, stitched with river silver,
so I think I understand why the man who lost his son
comes here only in bad weather,
when he can lean full tilt
against the wind’s shoulder,
take the rain’s beating, the hail’s pepper-shot
and shout into the storm,
finding at last, something huge enough to blame.
Owen Sheers’ debut prose work The Dust Diaries (Faber 2004), a travel memoir set in Zimbabwe, was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize and won the Welsh Book of the Year Award in 2005. This poem is taken from his second poetry collection, Skirrid Hill, published by Seren (ISBN 1854114034, £7.99)
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