A Silchester ghost
For two thousand Springs, a shadowy presence over
these chalky downs, I’ve observed it all. Our tribes in Gaul
rose against invading Romans, so Caesar sent in troops.
My husband was a soldier in the guard of Commios, our king.
His court retreated north across the sea, found a patch
of land with many trees and far-reaching views – easy
to defend. I followed before three moons were full.
We set up in a hut of turf and thatch. Here I practised
what I’d learned at home: raised root vegetables, peas
and herbs; tended chickens and a sow, fattened piglets
sired by a neighbour’s boar. We ploughed a stretch
of land and planted wheat. But when disease began
to spread among the tribe, we fled the settlement, took
our three children to begin again a short ride south.
It wasn’t far enough: our daughter sickened, as did I.
My herbal treatments failed. We died, were ritually burned,
our ashes buried on the farm with two precious things –
a spindle, and my mother’s wedding gift: a looking glass.
Since then I’ve watched the Romans come once more,
destroy our huts, the hall, and build their homes where we
all sang and laughed, lit fires and cooked. Then they left.
Many summers passed in peace: deer chewed the grass
which soon took hold; wolves prowled; hawks circled.
But recently, I’ve seen the ground dug up, replaced, dug up,
replaced again, for cows to trample on. The remnants
of our lives are disinterred and passed from hand to hand.
Our bones are whisked away. But with these fragments
story-tellers reconstruct the past and help us live again.
~
Gill Learner grew up in Birmingham but moved south years ago. Her poems appear in magazines and anthologies, and have won prizes. She has three collections from Two Rivers Press.