Poems from the Young Poets Walk 2022
As part of the Ledbury Poetry Festival in 2022, David Armitage from the Malvern Hills AONB, and local poet Sara-Jane Arbury, inspired an aspiring group of young poets by taking them on a story-telling walk over British Camp. Hereunder are the the poems that were crafted through fresh eyes on the old hills.
My Dragon Hills
A dragon sleeping in the earth,
Its spine ever tramped along,
The crinkled lines of nature
Taking root in skin and bone,
Winding scars etched over
Its tree-speckled ridges.
Over a millennium of time
The dragon has crawled,
Slower than the imperceptible
Movement of a glacier,
Searching in its slumber,
The ice-capped north
That is its home.
Never known or suspected,
The dragon lies still,
Though if ever woken
The world may meet
Its unspoken end,
In the fiery rage of my dragon hills.
Myla Jones: 11 years old in 2022
The Carrion Crows Of God
The murder of carrion crows
Descends upon the sea of deceased bodies,
Swarming, mobbing,
Scenting death in the air.
Coal-black wings dripping scarlet blood,
A flash of beak and talon and eye,
Feathers streaked with the entrails
Of human carcasses.
The messenger birds of the god in the sky,
Birds that offer something more,
A future for those dead.
The Celts lay out the bodies of their loved ones,
Hoping and grieving for those gone,
The carrion crows carry those souls
From the past to the new land.
Myla Jones: 11 years old in 2022
The Hill Of Hanging Sorrow
One day, the hill spoke with a voice,
That wove together his story
He spoke of grief, of all those hanged,
Of trauma, and strangled screams of fury
And although the noose that had hung those
Had been wrenched from his soil long ago,
His voice still wavered with sorrow,
As though speaking the screams
Of those deceased, and whose bones
Now lie forever in the barrow
So wept the hill with shame and grief,
And lamented all those dead
At the cruelty of mankind
That resulted in those that bled
The mourning of the hill showed
That it truly felt repent.
Myla Jones: 11 years old in 2022
The Proud Hill Of Summer
I am the hill that helps all life,
That saves all from the cold,
I nurture what winter broke,
Springing open with the new,
I look down upon my frozen enemy,
With scorn and sneering jeer,
For who could hope to challenge me
The most beloved Summer Hill,
Of life and love and warmth.
I am the one who strengthens the newborns,
Who helps them to strive and grow,
It is I who stands proud in glory
Who has achieved so much,
Yet even I must sober down
For the undeserving winter
And watch as he destroys my work,
And kills what I created,
I simmer like the boiling sun,
With rage in the bitter wind,
For I am the Summer Hill,
And I will always win.
Myla Jones: 11 years old in 2022
The Struggling Hill Of End
There is a hill who is always forgot,
One always left behind,
She is the hill at the end,
Slower than all the rest,
She weeps and cries to catch her fellow hills,
Yet they always leave her behind,
She is angry at her name,
For she never wished to be the end
She cries that it’s only one point of view,
That she could have been the head
Yet she is the tail end,
The forgotten one that weeps,
And the only joy that’s ever given her
Is those hikers most determined
To tread upon her soil,
And when they reach her tail end
She shares with them their glory.
Myla Jones: 11 years old in 2022
When The Reservoir Is Merry
In day, the reservoir is stilled,
Though still wishes to be filled,
In its depths, there is a crayfish war,
And outside, the human bustle
That has such a clear flaw,
As its precious life water slowly drips away,
Its walls sink into nothing more than sodden clay.
Forgotten by most humans,
The reservoir dies in day,
It has no future in the sunlight,
But at night it still may…
For at night, the reservoir begins to glint,
The moonlight falling in shafts like flint,
At night, the water begins to ripple and swirl,
And the pixies dance and spin and twirl.
Shining dragonflies, pond skaters and more,
Begin to beat out a tune that will soar,
It will flourish and bloom
And ignite and fume,
Setting a fire in the dancers’ brains,
Making them wild and insane.
Yet, in the morning, they are all gone,
You no longer hear their song,
But the pixies, dragonflies and all
Shall sing again their night-time call.
Myla Jones: 11 years old in 2022