POEMS/ Beacon Wood, Hampshire, England
Dashwood's studio at Beacon Wood
Beacon Wood, Hampshire, England
for Geoffrey Dashwood
Today no fires gleam from Beacon Wood,
beyond the giant oaks above the valley.
Here a sculptor does his work,
plying a craft older than Greece itself,
shaping forms in wire and clay,
readying them for plaster and for wax,
his molds for casting bronze—images
not mighty men or women, gods or heroes,
but birds of every size and every feather—
warblers, finches, herons, owls, and hawks.
Planted in his garden and his shop,
their forms are rooted, beyond change.
Once there were great stone towers
on his hill beneath the ancient oaks,
towers crowned with beacons
to give warning of the Spanish fleet
like the beacon fires that reached
from far off Troy to Agamemnon’s palace
across the wine-dark sea
to shine among the stone-worn hills
of Argos, beacons whose lights would bear the word
that Troy had fallen, but brought no peace,
for the great warriors who fought there.
Here we can see the broad grey-silver channel
where the mighty fleet was driven off,
and stand beneath the giant timeless oaks
that frame the sculptor’s art—
here in this place where art and nature
coexist in peace, we can forget for a brief time
fires burning all around our world,
conflagrations that will not go out.
This poem appears in All Roads Go Where They Will (Antrim House, 2010)
for Geoffrey Dashwood
Today no fires gleam from Beacon Wood,
beyond the giant oaks above the valley.
Here a sculptor does his work,
plying a craft older than Greece itself,
shaping forms in wire and clay,
readying them for plaster and for wax,
his molds for casting bronze—images
not mighty men or women, gods or heroes,
but birds of every size and every feather—
warblers, finches, herons, owls, and hawks.
Planted in his garden and his shop,
their forms are rooted, beyond change.
Once there were great stone towers
on his hill beneath the ancient oaks,
towers crowned with beacons
to give warning of the Spanish fleet
like the beacon fires that reached
from far off Troy to Agamemnon’s palace
across the wine-dark sea
to shine among the stone-worn hills
of Argos, beacons whose lights would bear the word
that Troy had fallen, but brought no peace,
for the great warriors who fought there.
Here we can see the broad grey-silver channel
where the mighty fleet was driven off,
and stand beneath the giant timeless oaks
that frame the sculptor’s art—
here in this place where art and nature
coexist in peace, we can forget for a brief time
fires burning all around our world,
conflagrations that will not go out.
This poem appears in All Roads Go Where They Will (Antrim House, 2010)