Ancient Of Days
By Paul Cameron Brown
It's Epsom but could pass for Epping,
New Forest or Dumbarton Wood.
There's ivy of the thickest
English sort not commonly
found in America; sprigs
growing across open ground
mantling it.
Shiny to the eye, soft encircling
the touch, I am reminded of blue waters,
green grass Blake's Ancient of Days:
an old man's beard stepping from the trees,
Spanish Moss so unearthly it covers a
southern forest.
There are tendrils in herbal potions of unbroken lips that move
across both dew and clover.
I see Druids reciting psalms, weaving ivy along garlands
of oak, the incantation set before a British lake -
briar baskets carrying the trusting dead;
food offerings transversing the waters.
The ivy calls to mind all these things,
just a sprig held tightly yet aromatic beyond imagining,
my timorous English settlers seen thru a spate of leaves
clutching their holly on Roanoke island.