Friday 14 October 2011

Merrivale

Standing alone as seasons pass,
proud against a bleak horizon,
steadfast before the deluge.
Island of stone within a moat of tears

Four-field face,
directional but unturning.
Casting a shadow
the only moving part

Placid, tranquil, accepting.
Open, waiting and fluid.
Floating, partly sunk,
buoyant on the sea lawn.

Numbered stones
    aligned.
Directional points
    indicating.
Antiquarian eagerness
    re-invented?
Millenial origins
    satisfied?

Prostrate and revealing
alabaster reclining.
The circle can be entered
from any direction

Standing erect,
looming over the cleansing circle,
the shadow reaches out
but never makes contact.

2 comments:

  1. I had to look it up, Simon:
    From Wikipedia -
    A leat (also lete or leet, or millstream) is the name, common in the south and west of England and in Wales, for an artificial watercourse or aqueduct dug into the ground, especially one supplying water to a watermill or its mill pond. Other common uses for leats include delivery of water for mineral washing and concentration, for irrigation, to serve a dye works or other industrial plant, and provision of drinking water to a farm or household or as a catchment cut-off to improve the yield of a reservoir.
    According to the Oxford English Dictionary, leat is cognate with let in the sense of "allow to pass through". Other names for the same thing include fleam (probably a leat supplying water to a mill that did not have a millpool). In parts of northern England, for example around Sheffield, the equivalent word is goit. In southern England, a leat used to supply water for water-meadow irrigation is often called a carrier, top carrier, or main.

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  2. Many thanks for the visit and the comment.

    The Leat denotes and man-made deivce for channeling water - or words and pictures. They're an important aspect of the Dartmoor fringes.

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