Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

I was meant to guard the unlockable bus
but got held up at the stone circle
where a succession of ponies came to worship.
When I wandered away a young chestnut
came to befriend me and lead me back
into the circle where she grazed quietly
as long as I sat on a stone.
Then out of the bracken came a large grey pony
who broke my heart because she so reminded me of Misty.
The others stopped grazing and turned to stare at her.
She was aloof and wouldn’t be touched
but led me to the second largest stone
the Mother Stone?
where she stood in communion for the longest tine
occasionally touching her soft nuzzle
against the ancient hardness.
A succession of ponies joined her,
stayed a moment, touched it and wandered away.
I may have been brought here for a purpose
so I try to make my peace with the past.

We bring you grain from the far plain.
We bring you flower garlands from the hedgetops.
We bring the firstmilk to pour at your centre.
We sit back to back while the maidens wrap
plaited ivy around each stone, link them,
and trail them back to the centre.
We rock and hum and by turns dance our slow dance.
We shriek out our darkest fears of the deep night
that the stars do not fall from the sky
and burn the land as they did in our forefathers’ time.
That the great white dust does not come back
and kill the beasts in the fields
and the smallest ones at the fireside.
We keep the boys beyond the outer ring of fires.
Till they have whooped and raged
and the wild is danced out of them
the stave men do not let them to the centre.
So it is through earths and ages.