The Black Pool
14,000 BC Midsummer’s Day
On flat plains of low juniper scrub
monolithic, massive remnants of ice
dwarf the land, draws the herds: mammoth, deer, horse
watch calves, fauns, foals while people, wolf, lynx, bear
wait in the shade.
The ice fails, cracking, crashing to the ground.
Panic spreads, herds scatter, the earth thunders,
a child is lost to wolves. The ground softens
as the ice sinks into earth.
10,000 BC Midsummer’s Day
The good days – the days of plenty on the edge
of the pool. Women take geese on the wing
with yew bows, and ash arrows, Men gather
firewood, prepare food, watch wains, trap eels.
Out of sight a child is drowning, slipping,
slowly, inevitably, into the black water
the dreadful sound is lost to the silence.
100 BC Midsummer’s Day
Boggy pool, on a boggy plain, trees sparse,
bent, broken by gales and salt spray. Rising
seas spread slow black water over the land.
Lights burn on the surface – blue elf lights –
bubbles rise – burst – give a sulphurous stank.
Rot fills the air. The day lasts long into
the night. A silent crowd gathers facing
the mere, a girl is brought out; she is
naked, the light catches her young face
haggard, her eyes empty, hollow cheeks,
teardrops glisten. They lead her out hobbling
onto the mire, she doesn’t see the knife
her mother wields. Chanting erupts, blows strike
to the rhythm as she falls
face down in the muck. Men bring withies to seal
her into her new home.
Her blood spills red into the water,
the sun spills red into the sky
the torches spill red onto the chanting faces.
AD 1920 Midsummer’s Day
The builder, the farmer, the councillor
all stand and stare at pitch black, stinking mud.
Surveyors: jackets off, braces, white collarless
shirts, fiddle with drills, rods, chains, flags, and cord,
measuring off the bog.
It’s a kettle hole 40 feet of peat,
no good for nobody. Be a good park
It’s a place of ill omen my granddad
lost his prize bull in there drownded.
One night I saw a wight – a young lass her
throat slit -bad things ‘appen round this place.
Aye we’ll take it for a park, fill it up
with fly ash and soil it’ll be a gradely place
for the old folk to sit. Wights indeed.
AD 1968 Midsummer’s Day
A young man sits watching the pretty blonde
boys playing in the park. Making his mind up,
making friends, making a selection.
Andrew Hoaen is a disabled writer who had an interesting journey from the underclass to academia. My most recent publication is “ Drugs at 60” in the webzine Sein und Werden http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/spring-summer24/contents.html.