Time has draped its memories into the folds of this land
seeped into creek and breck, wood and field
left abandoned in greenways, ditches and lanes
its ancient flinted skeletons rooted by mound and moat
flying arches and buttress open to the whipping wind
that strips the ghosts of Cluny from their pews and cloister.
A scatter of God's houses hold our line to the past
and lie in sublimation to the east and the birth of a river
that wanders through meadowsweet fields
and hurries under light flecked tunneled canopies
with crowfoot and cress that sway in devoted melancholy rhythm
to the eternal enchantment of its crystal waters
from which languid cows dip their heavy heads to drink.
Under till and plough, hoof and wheel
from ages of darkness to our enlightenment
the land has breathed its cycle of fallow and birth
pouring its abundance into the mouths of transients
from refectory to garden bench
who are separated by long wandering centuries
but bound by the same spell of this acre.
Check out other Poetry Atlas poems about Norfolk.