Canto III – Oteri Sancte Marie

“A man skilled in song, received the land-rights

That the refuge of warriors erst rendered me.

That passed away; so may this.”

-        Deor

The glory of the western sky

and the warm red earth below;

holts and hives and labyrinths

cast in a vaulted glow –

perhaps that is what first drew them

in their hordes and gaggles; mini men

banished from old circles and barrows,

with lumpy rags and spiky eyes,

pecking stardust, burning barrels,

frolicking and chirping and rocking,

pinching colt ears and twiddling manes,

tricking wayward infants into little thanes,

searching for another laugh to replace

their roughshod churlish giggle –

how could they suspect?

That their piskie holes and caves

would buckle under sabatons

when men arrived;

those Cromwells and Fairfaxs

chewing grease and grit and toasting

thick goblets thicker still

with the blood of Gaels and Irish spit.

Fear the peals

that ring circles for a smaller world;

the piskie droves knew their end was near

if Adonai reared belltowers to see and hear,

but dreaded more the youthful bard,

born squealing verse as fat as lard;

those clumsy rhythms pared and grew

into odes and sonnets and rime,

and that was when the piskies knew

man’s tooth and tongue

would rule the rest of time.

Still, they watched him

and sent Arabian spectres

to shake his cot, and later tipped

his opium elbow, brewing poppied fancies

and then chuckling sorrow

when all their efforts to mire

and muddle that lyric man

only birthed his Kubla Khan –

they despaired and fled to their runted parlour

and the poet hastened his preaching

for conversation’s verse –

shilling Kant and Shelling

for a penny pauper’s purse.

If you peer down Oteri’s cobbles

where the piskie song now limps and hobbles –

that ancient noise is bent in thrall

to salute that verse

which blessed us all;

every creature and every craftsman

both great

and small.

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