Mark Leech
Battlefield
The annihilation of the English army at Roslin, 24 February 1303
i.
They're haunched in snow, the Englishmen,
fires all steam and hiss and nothing heat.
One turns back from facing shadow,
his jaw a mash of bony flakes
soon to melt and brood as water
on his thin and naked throat.
They'll not turn back tonight, never mind
the clawing slip and mutter
somewhere in the black-hauled glen,
with Scotland roused among the rocks,
with dawn expected, a grey king
to come cresting the peaks like a victor to find
snowmelt and wet earth, the song of spring
fat in the throat of a crow.
ii.
If you walk this way
along the knotted route of the English camp
ice overlaid,
walk it on the day of the year
with spears of snow dropping from the branches,
you'll find nothing
but sun and water, cold and light.
Meltwater freezes again to crab each mound of earth
imagining some thick love tombed
to grow, hoard and refresh again
that fertile scattering whose bladed seeds soon
bound the fallen heads to trunks, new and aspen thin.
But you'll see nothing.
Sun and water, cold and light.
They're haunched in snow, the Englishmen,
fires all steam and hiss and nothing heat.
One turns back from facing shadow,
his jaw a mash of bony flakes
soon to melt and brood as water
on his thin and naked throat.
They'll not turn back tonight, never mind
the clawing slip and mutter
somewhere in the black-hauled glen,
with Scotland roused among the rocks,
with dawn expected, a grey king
to come cresting the peaks like a victor to find
snowmelt and wet earth, the song of spring
fat in the throat of a crow.
ii.
If you walk this way
along the knotted route of the English camp
ice overlaid,
walk it on the day of the year
with spears of snow dropping from the branches,
you'll find nothing
but sun and water, cold and light.
Meltwater freezes again to crab each mound of earth
imagining some thick love tombed
to grow, hoard and refresh again
that fertile scattering whose bladed seeds soon
bound the fallen heads to trunks, new and aspen thin.
But you'll see nothing.
Sun and water, cold and light.
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