Silbury Hill

 

They found no bones there

no crouching dead

only a rusted bridle bit

 

and the red deer antler picks

our settling ancestors used

to hack out the chalk –

 

I think of them (on this day

when snow turns to sleet

and the dark comes quickly)

 

making something

most would never see finished,

a white hill

 

that might lift them

out of that flooded river valley

a little nearer the sun

 

 

 

 

Published in Oxford Magazine, Michaelmas Term 2019