Dancing Dust |
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Poems by Mollie Caird (1922-2000) |
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Port Meadow |
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Rosamund lay in Godstow walls, My love, my royal love she cried, The abbess prayed and the winecup passed; Wishes are horses and beggars ride. A green-haired girl jumps down from her van, A stud in her nose and a scar on her brow, She runs with her dog and her dog with his fleas; This place has never known the plough. An archaeologist stirs the mound, Sifts the dust where the bronze man died, Some ash and a bone and a twisted ring; Wishes are horses and beggars ride. Where Rosamund lay the birthwort grows, The hummocked walls are crumbled now And plastic picnics strew the grass; This place has never known the plough. Seven crows perch in a poplar tree, Eleven swans on the river glide, Green with nitrates, heavy with lead; Wishes are horses and beggars ride. Geese on the racetrack, ghosts at the lock, Undieselled ghosts at the narrowboat’s prow; Wishes are horses and beggars ride, This place has never known the plough. Undated Island City: Oxford poems by living poets, 1999 |